Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoyevsky to his family and friends

vl'-v

Letters of

Fyodor Michailovitch
Dostoevsky

to his Family and Friends

FYODOR MICHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY, PETERSBURG, 1879.

[Frontispiece.

Letters of

Fyodor ;Michailovitch
(Dostoevsky

to his Family and Friends

TRANSLATED BY

ETHEL GOLBURN MAYNE

London
Ghatto 6? Windus

1'it st edition, October, 1914
Second edition, re-set, November 19/7

All rights reset'., ed

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

IN the German translator's 1 preface to this volume
it is pointed out that a complete collection of Dos-
toevsky's letters does not yet exist. " The first
volume of the first collected edition of Dostoevsky's
works (St. Petersburg, 1873), contains only a selection,
which is usually lacking in the later editions." Herr
Eliasberg goes on to tell us that " a series of letters
which were to have been included in the present work
was at the last moment withdrawn by the novelist's
widow; the corrected proofs of these are to be pre-
served in a sealed portfolio at the Dostoevsky Museum
in Moscow."

The present volume derives chiefly from the book
by Tchechichin: "Dostoevsky in the Reminiscences
of his Contemporaries, and in his Letters and Memo-
randa " (Moscow, 1912). The letters here numbered
XXXVIII., XLIV., L., LVL, and LVIII. are lacking
in Tchechichin's book, and were taken from a
Russian monthly journal, Rousskaya Starina. Those
numbered XXXIX., XLVI., XLVIIL, and LIX.,
which are incompletely given by Tchechichin, are
here given in full.

From Tchechichin's work were also taken a number

1 Herr Alexander Eliasberg (R. Piper and Go., Munich).
v

vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

of notes, as well as the reminiscences of Dostoevsky
by his contemporaries, which here form an Appendix.

The present text, therefore, while it contains much
that is relatively " inedited," yet cannot pretend to
full completeness. On comparing it with a French
translation of some of the letters, issued by the
Societe du Mercure de France in 1908, it is seen to
be a good deal the more judiciously edited of the
two the German translator has pared away many
repetitions, much irrelevant and uninteresting matter,
while he has used material of the highest biographical
value which the French editor either unaccountably
omitted, or, it may be, had not at disposal. Of such
are the letters enumerated above ; and, more than all,
the peculiarly interesting passage in Letter XXXIV.,
which relates Dostoevsky's historic quarrel with
Turgenev.

A word about the punctuation. It has been, so far
as was thought at all feasible, left as Dostoevsky
offered it. Like Byron, he " did not know a comma;
at least, where to put one " or rather, in Dos-
toevsky's case, where not to put one, for his lavish
use of the less important and lucid sign is very re-
markable. Here and there, this predilection has
been departed from by me, but only when it too
deeply obscured the sense ; elsewhere, since even
punctuation has its value for the student of character,
Dostoevsky's " system " is retained in all its chaotic
originality.

E. C. M.

CONTENTS

PAGE

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE ... v

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF DOSTOEVSKY'S LIFE . xi

LETTERS

1. To his Father: May 10, 1838 . . i

2. To his Brother Michael: August 9, 1838 . . 3
3- ,, ,, October 31, 1838 . . 5
4. ,, ,, January i, 1840 . . 9
5- ,, i, September 30, 1844 . 15

6. : , March 24, 1845 . . 17

7. May 4, 1845 . . 21

8. ,, ,, October 8, 1845 . . 24

9. ,, ,, November 16, 1845 . 28

10. ,, February i, 1846 . . 31

11. April i, 1846 . . 33

12. ,, ,, September 17, 1846 . 36

13. ,, ,, Undated, 1846 . . 37

14. ,, ,, November 26, 1846 . 38

15. ,, ,, Undated, 1847 . . 40

16. ,, Undated, 1847 . . 43

17. July 18, 1849 . . 43

18. .. ,, August 27, 1849 . . 46

19. ,, ,, September 14, 1849 . 48

20. ,, ,, December 22, 1849 . 50

21. ,, February 22, 1854 . 51

22. To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin: Beginning of March, 1854 66

23. To Mme. Maria Dmitryevna Issayev: June 4, 1855 70

24. To Mme. Praskovya Yegorovna Annenkov : October

18, 1855 77

25. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov : January 18, 1856 79

viii CONTENTS

PAGB:

26. To General E. I. Totleben: March 24, 1856 . 86

27. To Baron A. E. Vrangel: April 13, 1856 . . 92

28. To his Brother Michael: May 31, 1858 . . 94

29. ,, ,, May 9, 1859 . . 97

30. To Frau Stackenschneider: May 3, 1860 . . 99-

31. To Mme. V. D. Constantino: September i, 1862 . 101

32. To N. N. Strachov: September 18 [30], 1863 . 103

33. To A. P. Milyukov: June, 1866 . . . 106

34. To Apollon Maikov: August 16 [28], 1867 . . 108

35. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna : September 29

[October n], 1867 . . . .120

36. To Apollon Maikov: October 9 [21], 1867 . . 124

37. To P. A. Issayev: October 10 [22], 1867 . . 127

38. To his Sister Vera, and his Brother-in-Law,

Alexander Pavlovitch Ivanov: January i [13],
1868 . . . . . .129

39. To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna: January i [13],

1868 ...... 134

40. To P. A. Issayev: February 19 [March 3], 1868 . 138.

41. To Apollon Maikov: May 1 8 [30], 1868 . . 139

42. ,, ,, June 10 [22], 1868 . . 141

43. October 7 [19], 1868 . . 142

44. To his Niece: October 26 [November 7], 1868 . 145

45. To Apollon Maikov: December n [23], 1868 . 148

46. To his Niece: January 25 [February 6], 1869 . 151

47. To N. N. Strachov: February 26 [March 10], 1869 . 156

48. To his Niece: March 8 [20], 1869 . . . 159

49. To N. N. Strachov: March 18 [30], 1869 . .165

50. To his Niece: August 29 [September 10], 1869 . 167

51. To Apollon Maikov: October 16 [28], 1869 . .172

52. . ,, ,, February 12 [24], 1870 . 174

53. To N. N. Strachov: February 26 [March 10], 1870 . 175
54- ,, March 24 [April 5], 1870 . 177

55. To Apollon Maikov: March 25 [April 6], 1870 . 180

56. To his Sister Vera, and his Niece: May 7 [19], 1870. 183

57. To N. N. Strachov: June n [23], 1870 . . 186

58. To his Niece: July 2 [14], 1870 . . . 187
59- ,, August 17 [29], 1870 . . . 191
60 To N. N. Strachov: October 9 [21], 1870 . . 198

CONTENTS ix

PAGE

61. To Apollon Maikov: December 15 [27], 1870 . 199

62. ,, ( , December 30 [January u],

1870-71 . . . 200

63. ,, ,, March 2 [14], 1871 . . 202

64. To N. N. Strachov: April 23 [May 5], 1871 . 204
65- ,, ,, May 18 [30], 1871 . . 206

66. To Mme. Ch. D. Altschevsky: April 9, 1876 . 211

67. To Vsevolod Solovyov : July, 1876 . . . 215

68. To Mile. Gerassimov: March 7, 1877 . . 217

69. To A. P. N. : May 19, 1877 .... 219

70. To N. L. Osmidov: February, 1878 . . 221

71. To a Mother : March 27, 1878 . . . 223

72. To a Group of Moscow Students: April 18, 1878 . 227

73. To Mile. N. N. : April n, 1880 . . . 234

74. To Frau E. A. Stackenschneider: July 17, 1880 . 237

75. To N. L. Osmidov: August 18, 1880 . . 240

76. To I. S. Aksakov: August 28, 1880 . . . 242

77. To Dr. A. F. Blagonravov: December 19, 1880 . 244

RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

By D. V. Grigorovitch (1837-1846) . . . 247

By A. P. Milyukov (1848-1849) . . . 256

By P. K. Martyanov (1850-1854) . . . 266

By Baron Alexander Vrangel (1854-1865) . . 272
By Sophie Kovalevsky (1866) .... 302

CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENTS

R. P. Pobyedonoszev to I. S. Aksakov . . . 314

I. S. Aksakov to R. P. Pobyedonoszev . . . 315

Turgenev to Slutchevsky . 315

Dostoevsky . . . .315

,, Polonsky . . , . .316

,, Mme. Milyutin . . . .316

Saltykov (1875) .... 317

Saltykov (1882) . . . .317

Tolstoy to A. N. Strachov . . . .317

INDEX

319

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Portrait of Dostoevsky, Petersburg, 1879 . i

Dostoevsky's Birthplace (the Workhouse Hospital at

Moscow) . . . . . xii

Dostoevsky's Father . . . . .2

Michael Dostoevsky . . . . .40

Dostoevsky's Mother . . . . -7

Dostoevsky at Semipalatinsk (1858) in Ensign's Uni-
form . . . . . .98

F. M. Dostoevsky ..... 142

Facsimile of " The Possessed," Part III., beginning of

Chapter I. . . . . . .178

Dostoevsky, Petersburg, 1876 . . . .212

Dostoevsky's Study in Petersburg . . . 222

Portrait of Dostoevsky, Petersburg, 1879 . .234

Dostoevsky, Moscow, 1880 .... 242

Dostoevsky's Handwriting in 1838 (Letter to his

Brother Michael, August 9) ... 250

Dostoevsky, Moscow, 1863 . . . .298

Dostoevsky on his Death-Bed, January 29, 1 881 . 314

The Widow and Children of Dostoevsky at his Grave in

Petersburg . . . . . .316

The illustrations are from photographs taken, by permission,
from the originals in the Moscow Museum.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF
DOSTOEVSKY'S LIFE

AFTER V. TCHECHICHIN

1821. " In the parish of St. Peter and Paul at Moscow was
born on October 30 of the year 1821, in the dwelling-
house of the Workhouse Hospital, to Staff-Physician
Michail Andreyevitch Dostoevsky, a male child, who
was named Fyodor. Baptised on November 4."

1831. Dostoevsky 's parents purchase a country-house in the
Tula Government, where the family henceforth spends
the summer.

1834. Dostoevsky enters the boys' school of L. J. Tchermak
at Moscow.

1 836. Great influence of the Literature-master upon the boys.
Enthusiasm for Pushkin.

1837. On February 27, Maria Fyodorovna Dostoevsky, his
mother, dies. Early in the year, Fyodor Dostoevsky
goes with his elder brother Michael to Petersburg, and
enters the Preparatory School of K. F. Kostomarov.
In the autumn, he is admitted to the Principal College
of Engineering.

1837-43. Study at the College of Engineering.

1838. Summer in camp. Enthusiasm for Balzac, Hugo,
E. T. A. Hoffmann. In the autumn, failure in the exa-
minations; is not promoted. In the winter, friendly
relations with Schidlovsky and Berechetzky. Interest
in Schiller.

1839. Death of his father, Michail Andreyevitch Dostoevsky.

1840. November 29: Promotion to non-commissioned officer's
rank. December 27: To ensign's. >

1841. Dramatic efforts, "Maria Stuart" and "Boris
Godounov." (They have not come down to us.)
August 5: Dostoevsky undergoes the examination for
promotion to commissioned rank, and is promoted to
be Field-Engineer's Ensign, on the recommendation of
the College of Engineering.

1842. Promotion to Lieutenant's rank.

1843. August 12: Leaves the College. August 23: Obtains
an appointment in the Department of Engineering.

xii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF

1 844. At the end of the preceding and in the beginning of this
year, Dostoevsky is occupied in translating Balzac's
" Eugenie Grandet." During the year he reads and
translates works by George Sand and Sue.

Works at " Poor Folk."

Project for a drama (Letter of September 30, 1844).

October 19: Dostoevsky is by Royal permission dis-
charged with the rank of First-Lieutenant " on account
of illness."

December 17: He is struck off the lists of the Corps of
Military Engineers.

1845. In the beginning of May, the novel "Poor Folk" is.
finished.

Nekrassov and Grigorovitch pay the midnight visit
after reading " Poor Folk."

Intercourse with Bielinsky. In the summer he goes
to his brother Michael at Reval.

November 1 5 : Letter to his brother with news of his
first successes in literary circles.

At the end of the year, plans for the satirical journal,
Suboskal.

" Novel in Nine Letters."

1846. January 15: Nekrassov's Petersburg Almanac appears
with Dostoevsky's first book, "Poor Folk."

Bielinsky 's article on " Poor Folk" in the Otetschcst-
vennia Zapiski.

February i: The story of " The Double " (" Goliad-
kin ") appears in the Otetschestvennia Zapiski.

" The Whiskers that were Shaved Off " and the " Story
of the Abolished Public Offices." (Neither work has
come down to us.)

" Mr. Prochartschin " (O. Z., No. 10).

In the summer, at Reval with his brother.

In the autumn, Dostoevsky thinks of issuing his col-
lected tales in volume form.

At the end of the year come misunderstandings, and
a breach with the editorial staff of the Sovremennik.

1847. The " Novel in Nine Letters " is published in the Sovre-
mennik, and " The Mistress of the Inn " in the Otetschest-
vennia Zapiski.

" Poor Folk " appears in book form.

1848. The February Revolution in Paris.

Political groups, such as those around Petrachevsky,
form in Petersburg.

" The Stranger-Woman " (O. Z., No. i).
" A Weak Heart " (O. Z., No. 2).
" Christmas and Wedding " (O. Z., No. 10).
" Bright Nights " (0. Z., No. 16).

II

DOSTOEVSKY'S LIFE xiii

1848. " The Jealous Husband " (0. Z., No. 12).

1849. " Netotchka Nesvanova " (0. Z., Nos. 1-2, 5-6).

In March, Dostoevsky reads aloud [a revolutionary
letter from Bielinsky to Gogol at Petrachevsky's rooms]. 1

On April 23, Dostoevsky, together with other members
of the Petrachevsky circle, is arrested, and imprisoned
in the Petropaulovsky Fortress. [He was accused of
" having taken part in conversations about the severity
of the Censorship ; of having read, at a meeting in March,
1849, Bielinsky 's revolutionary letter to Gogol; of having
again read it at Dourov's rooms, and of having given it
to Monbelli to copy; of having listened at Dourov's to
the reading of various articles; of having knowledge of
the plan to establish a clandestine printing-press," etc.] 1

December 19 : Dostoevsky is condemned to degradation
from military rank, and imprisonment.

December 22: Dostoevsky, and all the Petrachevsky
group, hear read over them, first, the death-sentence,
and then the commuted sentence of hard labour in the
Siberian prisons.

December 24-25: On this night Dostoevsky is put in
irons, and transported from Petersburg to Siberia.

1850. January n: Arrival at Tobolsk. Meeting with the
wives of the Decembrists.

January 17: Continues journey to Omsk.
1850-54. Serves his sentence in the prison at Omsk.

1854. February 15: Completion of sentence.

February 22: Letter to his brother with description
of his life in the prison.

March 2 : Dostoevsky is enrolled as private in the 7th
Siberian Regiment of the Line.

In end of March, arrives at Semipalatinsk.

In May, writes his poem on the European incidents of
1854.

November 21 : Baron Vrangel arrives at Semipalatinsk.

1855. February 19: The Tsar Alexander II. ascends the
throne. Dostoevsky writes a poem on the death of
Nicholas I. and the accession of Alexander II. (It has
not come down to us.) He begins " The House of the
Dead."

1856. January 15: Promotion to non-commissioned rank.
March 24: Letter to General Totleben, requesting his

intercession with the Tsar.

October i : By Imperial command, he is promoted to
be Ensign in the same battalion.

1 Translator's amplification.

xiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF

1857. February 6: Dostoevsky's betrothal to the widowed
Maria Dmitryevna Issayev takes place at Kusnezk.

April 18: Imperial minute to the Commander of the
Siberian Army Corps to the effect that Dostoevsky and
his legal heirs regain the ancient title of nobility, though
the confiscated property is not to be restored. Dos-
toevsky first hears of this in May.

At the end of the year, Dostoevsky sends in a petition,
on discharge, begging to be allowed to live in Moscow.

" The Little Hero " (O. Z., No. 8).

1859. March 18: Discharged from military service with the
rank of Lieutenant. Indication of the town of Tver as
a suitable place of abode.

'-' Uncle's Dream " (Roussky Viestnik, No. 3).

July 2 : Departure from Semipalatinsk.

Autumn in Tver. Petition to the Tsar, that he may be
allowed to live freely in all the towns of the Empire.
Work at " The House of the Dead."

" Stepanchikovo Village " (O. Z., Nos. 11-12).

At the end of November, permission to leave Tver.
Leaves for Petersburg.

1860. Collected Edition of Works. Two volumes. Moscow:
N. A. Osnovsky.

1861. Collaboration on the journal Vremya.
Publication of " Injury and Insult " in that journal

and in book form.

1861-62. Publication of " The House of the Dead " (Vremya,
1861, Nos. 4, Q-II; and 1862, Nos. 1-3, 5, 12).
" A Silly Story " (Vremya, No. n).

1862. Two editions in book form of " The House of the
Dead."

June 7: Departure for abroad.

Stays in Paris, London (meeting with Herzen), and
Geneva.

1863. " Winter Notes on Summer Impressions " (Vremya,
Nos. 2-3).

In May, suppression of the Vremya, in consequence of
an article by Strachov on the Polish Question.

During the summer, travel in foreign lands. Stay in
Rome. Plan for " The Gambler."

Wife's illness during the winter.

1864-65. Direction of The Epoch, which took the place of the
Vremya.

1864. March 24: Appears the first number of The Epoch.
"From the Darkness of the Great City" (Epoch, Nos.
1-2 and 4).

DOSTOEVSKY'S LIFE xv

1864. April 16: Death of his wife.

June 10: Death of his brother Michael.
December 25: Death of his friend and collaborator ,.
Apollon Grigoryev.

1865. " An Unusual Occurrence " (Epoch, No. 2).

At the end of July, goes abroad. Begins the novel
" Rodion Raskolnikov " (" Crime and Punishment ").

Autumn in Wiesbaden.

October: Visit to Baron Vrangel at Copenhagen.

November: Return to Russia. Sale of his author's
rights to the publisher Stellovsky.

1865-66. First Collected Edition, in three volumes. Peters-
burg: Stellovsky.

Publication of " Rodion Raskolnikov" (" Crime and
Punishment ") in the Roussky Viestnik (Nos. 1-2, 4, 6,
8, 11-12) and in book form.

Summer at Lublin, near Moscow.

End of the year, at work on " The Gambler." Inter-
course with the stenographer Anna Grigorevna Snitkin.

1867. February 15: Marriage to A. G. Snitkin.
1867-71. Life abroad.

1867. April 14: Goes abroad. Two months in Dresden.
Article on Bielinsky (not preserved) .

August 16: Letter to Apollon Maikov on the quarrel
with Turgenev, and Dostoevsky's losses at roulette.

Plan for the " Diary of a Writer." (Letter to his
niece of September 29.)

At the end of the year, begins " The Idiot."

Third edition of " The House of the Dead "; second
and third editions of " Crime and Punishment."

1868. Publication of " The Idiot" in the Roussky Viestnik
(Nos. i, 2, 4-12) and in book form.

Summer in Switzerland and Italy,

Idea of a novel on Atheism (prototype of " The
Brothers Karamazov"). Letters about this to Maikov
and his niece.

1869. Beginning of the year, in Florence. Connection with
the new journal Sarya, and lively interest in Danilevsky's
essay on " Russia and Europe."

1870. " The Permanent Husband " (Sarya, Nos. i, 2).
Beginning of "The Possessed." Fourth edition of
" Crime and Punishment."

1871-72. Publication of " The Possessed " (Roussky Viestnik,
1871, Nos. 1-2, 4, 7, 9-12; and 1872, Nos. 11-12).

1871. July 8: Return from abroad to Petersburg.

xvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1872. Project of a trip to the East.

" The Permanent Husband " in book form.

1873. Joins editorial staff of Grajdanin (The Citizen), and
publishes the " Diary of a Writer " (first sixteen chapters)
and his " Survey of Foreign Occurrences."

" The Possessed " in book form.

1874. At the end of March, arrest for infraction of the Censor-
ship regulations.

Autumn and winter, at Staraya-Roussa. Second
edition of " The Idiot."

Beginning of the novel, " The Hobbledehoy."

1875. " The Hobbledehoy " (Otetschestvennia Zapiski, Nos.
i, 2, 4, 5, 9, n, 12), and in book form.

Fourth edition of " The House of the Dead."
Summer at Ems.
1876-77. " Diary of a Writer."

1876. Summer at Ems.

Article (in the June number of the Diary) on the Balkan
Question, and Dostoevsky's political creed.
" The Hobbledehoy " in book form.

1877. " The Little Girl " (in the Supplement to Grajdanin).
Summer in the Kursk Government.

December 24: " Memento for My Whole Life."

1878. In the summer, begins " The Brothers Karamazov."
Fourth edition of " Crime and Punishment."

1879-80. Appearance of " The Brothers Karamazov "
(Roussky Viestnik, 1879, Nos. I, 2, 4-6, 8-n; 1880, Nos.
i, 4, 7-11), and in book form.

1879. Second edition of the " Diary of a Writer " from the
year 1876.

Fifth edition of " Injury and Insult."
In June, goes with Vladimir Solovyov to the monastery
at Optin.

1880. May 25 : Banquet of Moscow writers and journalists in
Dostoevsky's honour.

June 6 and 7 : Festivities at Moscow in connection with
the unveiling of the Pushkin Memorial.

June 8: Dostoevsky's speech on Pushkin at the meet-
ing of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. Takes
part in the " Pushkin Evenings " got up by the Literary
Fund.

1881. January 28: At 8.38 o'clock p.m. Dostoevsky dies.
January 31: Public burial in the Cemetery of the

Alexander Nevsky Monastery at Petersburg.

Letters of

Fyodor Michailovitch
Dostoevsky

to his Family and Friends

To his Father

May 10, 1838.
MY DEAR GOOD FATHER,

Can you really think that your son is asking
too much when he applies to you for an allowance ?
God be my witness that not for self-interest, nor even
in actual extremest need, could I ever wish to despoil
you in any way. How bitter it is to have to ask my
flesh and blood a favour which so heavily oppresses
them ! I have my own head, my own hands. Were
I but free and independent, I should never have
asked you for so much as a kopeck I should have
inured myself to the bitterest poverty. I should
have been ashamed to write from my very death-bed,
asking for support. As things are, I can only console
you with promises for the future; however, that future
is no longer a distant one, and time will convince you
of its reality.

At present I beg you, dearest Papa, to reflect that
in the literal sense of the word I serve. I must,
whether I wish it or not, conform to the obligations
of my immediate environment. Why should I set up
as an exception ? Such exceptional attitudes, more-
over, are often attended by the greatest unpleasant-

2 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [I

nesses. You will readily understand this, dear Papa.
You have mixed enough with men to do that. And
therefore consider, please, the following points: Life
in camp, for every student of the Military Academy,
demands at least forty roubles. (I write this, because
I am addressing my father.) In that sum are not
included such necessities as tea, sugar, etc. Yet all
those things I must have as well assuredly not only
as comforts, but as sheer indispensables. When one
has to sleep in a canvas tent during damp and rain,
or when, in such weather, one returns weary and
chilled from practice, one may easily fall ill for want
of tea, as I have frequently experienced in former
years at these times. But I want to consider your
difficulties, and so I will give up tea altogether, and
ask you only for the barest necessary of all sixteen
roubles for two pairs of ordinary boots. Again: I
must keep my things, such as books, footgear, writing
materials, paper, etc., somewhere or other. 1 need
for that a trunk, for in camp there is no kind of shelter
but the tents. Our beds are bundles of straw covered
with sheets. Now I ask you where, without a trunk,
am I to keep my things ? You must know that the
Treasury does not care in the least whether I have one
or not. For the exams will soon be over, and then
I shall need no books; and as it is supposed to look
after my uniform, I ought not to require boots, etc.
But how can I pass the time without books ? and the
boots with which we are supplied are so bad that
three pairs scarcely see one through six months, even
in the town.

[Here follows a further catalogue of necessary
purchases.]

From your last remittance I have laid by fifteen
roubles. So you see, dear Papa, that I need at

r

JJOSTOKVSKY'S KATHKR.

JET. 16] DEPRESSION 3

least twenty-five more. We break up camp in the
beginning of June. If you will stand by your son
in his bitter need, send him this money by the first
of June. I dare not insist upon my petition: I am
not Basking too much, but my gratitude will be
boundless.

II

To his Brother Michael

PETERSBURG,

August 9, 1838.

[The letter begins with explanations of why
Dostoevsky has not written to his brother for so
long: he has not had a kopeck.]

It is true that I am idle very idle. But what will
become of me, if everlasting idleness is to be my only
attitude towards life ? I don't know if my gloomy
mood will ever leave me. And to think that such
a state of mind is allotted to man alone the atmo-
sphere of his soul seems compounded of a mixture
of the heavenly and the earthly. What an unnatural
product, then, is he, since the law of spiritual nature
is in him violated. . . . This earth seems to me a
purgatory for divine spirits who have been assailed
by sinful thoughts. I feel that our world has become
one immense Negative, and that everything noble,
beautiful, and divine, has turned itself into a satire.
If in this picture there occurs an individual who
neither in idea nor effect harmonizes with the whole
who is, in a word, an entirely unrelated figure
what must happen to the picture ? It is destroyed,
and can no longer endure.

Yet how terrible it is to perceive only the coarse
veil under which the All doth languish ! To know

4 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [n

that one single effort of the will would suffice to
demolish that veil and become one with eternity to
know all this, and still live on like the last and least
of creatures. . . . How terrible ! How petty is
man ! Hamlet ! Hamlet ! When I think of his
moving wild speech, in which resounds the groaning
of the whole numbed universe, there breaks from my
soul not one reproach, not one sigh. . . . That soul
is then so utterly oppressed by woe that it fears to
grasp the woe entire, lest so it lacerate itself. Pascal
once said: He who protests against philosophy is
himself a philosopher. A poor sort of system !

But I have talked enough nonsense. Of your
letters I have had only two, besides the last of all.
Now, brother, you complain of your poverty. I am
not rich either. But you will hardly believe that
when we broke up camp I had not a kopeck. On
the way I caught cold (it rained the whole day and
we had no shelter), was sick with hunger as well, and
had no money to moisten my throat with so much as
a sip of tea. I got well in time, but I had suffered
the direst need in camp, till at last the money came
from Papa. I paid my debts, and spent the rest.

[Dostoevsky enlarges further on his brother's situa-
tion and his own financial difficulties.]

However, it is time to speak of other things. You
plume yourself on the number of books you have
read. . . . But don't please imagine that I envy you
that. At Peterhof I read at least as many as you
have. The whole of Hoffmann in Russian and
German (that is, " Kater Murr," which hasn't yet been
translated), and nearly all Balzac. (Balzac is great !
His characters are the creations of an all-embracing
intelligence. Not the spirit of the age, but whole
millenniums, with all their strivings, have worked

MT, 17] BALZAC 5

towards such development and liberation in the soul
of man.) Besides all these, I read Goethe's " Faust "
and his shorter poems, Polevois' History, " Ugolino "
and " Undine " (I'll write at length about " Ugolino "
some other time), and, finally, Victor Hugo, except
" Cromwell " and " Hernani." Farewell. Write to
me, please, as often as you possibly can, for your
letters are a joy and solace. Answer this at once.
I shall expect your reply in twelve days at the very
latest. Do write, that I may not utterly languish.

Thy brother,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

I have a new plan: to go mad. That's the way:
for people to lose their heads, and then be cured and
brought back to reason ! If you've read all Hoff-
mann, you'll surely remember Alban. How do you
like him ? It is terrible to watch a man who has
the Incomprehensible within his grasp, does not
know what to do with it, and sits playing with a
toy called God !

Ill

To his Brother Michael

PETERSBURG,

October 31, 1838.

How long since I've written to you, dear brother !
That hateful examination it prevented me from
writing to you and Papa, and from looking up
I. N. Schidlovsky. 1 And what came of it all ? I have
not yet been promoted. O horror ! to live another
whole year in this misery ! I should not have been

1 I. Nikolay Schidlovsky, a Treasury official, who wrote
high-flown poems of abstract-ideal tendency. He later ruined
himself by drink.

6 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [in

so furious did I not know that I am the victim of
the sheerest baseness. The failure would not have
worried me so very much, if our poor father's tears
had not burned into my soul. I had not hitherto
known the sensation of wounded vanity. If such a
feeling had got hold of me, I might well have blushed
for myself. . . . But now you must know that I
should like to crush the whole world at one blow. . . .
I lost so much time before the examination, and was
ill and miserable besides ; but underwent it in the fullest
and most literal sense of the word, and yet have
failed. ... It is the decree of the Professor of
Algebra, to whom, in the course of the year, I had
been somewhat cheeky, and who was base enough to
remind me of it to-day, while ostensibly explaining to
me the reason for my failure. Out of ten full marks
I got an average of nine and a half, and yet I'm
left. . . . But hang it all, if I must suffer, I will. . . .
I'll waste no more paper on this topic, for I so seldom
have an opportunity to talk with you.

My friend, you philosophize like a poet. And just
because the soul cannot be for ever in a state of
exaltation, your philosophy is not true and not just.
To know more, one must feel less, and vice versa.
Your judgment is feather-headed it is a delirium
of the heart. What do you mean precisely by the
word know ? Nature, the soul, love, and God, one
recognizes through the heart, and not through the
reason. Were we spirits, we could dwell in that
region of ideas over which our souls hover, seeking
the solution. But we are earth-born beings, and can
only guess at the Idea not grasp it by all sides at
once. The guide for our intelligences through the
temporary illusion into the innermost centre of the
soul is called Reason. Now, Reason is a material
capacity, while the soul or spirit lives on the thoughts

JET. 17] PHILOSOPHY AND THE POET 7

which are whispered by the heart. Thought is born
in the soul. Reason is a tool, a machine, which is
driven by the spiritual fire. When human reason
(which would demand a chapter for itself) penetrates
into the domain of knowledge, it works independently
of the feeling, and consequently of the heart. But
when our aim is the understanding of love or of
nature, we march towards the very citadel of the
heart. I don't want to vex you, but I do want to
say that I don't share your views on poetry or philo-
sophy. Philosophy cannot be regarded as a mere
equation where nature is the unknown quantity !
Remark that the poet, in the moment of inspiration,
comprehends God, and consequently does the philo-
sopher's work. Consequently poetic inspiration is
nothing less than philosophical inspiration. Conse-
quently philosophy is nothing but poetry, a higher
degree of poetry ! It is odd that you reason quite in
the sense of our contemporary philosophy. What a
lot of crazy systems have been born of late in the
cleverest and most ardent brains ! To get a right
result from this motley troop one would have to
subject them all to a mathematical formula. And
yet they are the " laws " of our contemporary philo-
sophy ! I have jabbered enough. And if I look
upon your flabby system as impossible, I think it
quite likely that my objections are no less flabby, so
I won't bother you with any more of them.

Brother, it is so sad to live without hope ! When
I look forward I shudder at the future. I move in
a cold arctic atmosphere, wherein no sunlight ever
pierces. For a long time I have not had a single
outbreak of inspiration. . . . Hence I feel as the
Prisoner of Chillon felt after his brother's death.
The Paradise-bird of poetry will never, never visit
me again never again warm my frozen soul. You

8 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [HI

say that I am reserved; but all my former dreams
have long since forsaken me, and from those glorious
arabesques that I once could fashion all the gilding
has disappeared. The thoughts that used to kindle
my soul and heart have lost their glow and ardency;
or else my heart is numbed, or else. ... I am
afraid to go on with that sentence. I won't admit
that all the past was a dream, a bright golden dream.
Brother, I have read your poem. It urged some
tears from my soul, and lulled it for a while by the
spell of memories. You say that you have an idea
for a drama. I am glad of that. Write your drama,
then. If you had not these last crumbs from the
Elysiaijt feast, what would be left you in life ? I am
so sorry that these last few weeks I have not been
able to look up Ivan Nikolayevitch (Schidlovsky) ;
I was ill. Now listen. I think that the poet's in-
spiration is increased by success. Byron was an
egoist ; his longing for fame was petty. But the mere
thought that through one's inspiration there will one
day lift itself from the dust to heaven's heights some
noble, beautiful human soul; the thought that those
lines over which one has wept are consecrated as by
a heavenly rite through one's inspiration, and that
over them the coming generations will weep in
echo . . . that thought, I am convinced, has come to
many a poet in the very moment of his highest
creative rapture. But the shouting of the mob is
empty and vain. There occur to me those lines of
Pushkin, where he describes the mob and the poet :

" So let the foolish crowd, thy work despising, scream,
And spit upon the shrine where burns thy fire supreme,
Let them in childish arrogance thy tripod set a-tremble. . . ."

Wonderful, isn't it ? Farewell.

Your friend and brother,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

JJT. 17] DOSTOEVSKY'S FATHER 9

By the way, do tell me what is the leading idea
in Chateaubriand's work, " Genie du Christianisme."
I read lately in Ssyn Otetschestva an attack by the
critic Nisard on Victor Hugo. How little the French
esteem him ! How low does Nisard rate his dramas
and romances ! They are unfair to him ; and Nisard
(though he is so intelligent) talks nonsense. Tell me,
too, the leading motive of your drama; I am sure it
is fine.

I pity our poor father ! He has such a remarkable
character. What trouble he has had. It is so bitter
that I can do nothing to console him ! But, do you
know, Papa is wholly a stranger in the world. He has
lived in it now for fifty years, and yet he has the same
opinions of mankind that he had thirty years ago.
What sublime innocence ! Yet the world has dis-
appointed him, and I believe that that is the destiny
of us all. Farewell.

IV

To his Brother Michael

PETERSBURG,

January i, 1840.

I thank you from my heart, good brother, for your
dear letter. I am certainly quite a different sort of
person from you; you could never imagine how
delightfully my heart thrills when they bring me a
letter from you, and I have invented a new sort of
enjoyment: I put myself on the rack. I take your
letter in my hand, turn it about for some minutes,
feel it to see whether it's long, and when I've satiated
myself with the sealed envelope, I put it in my
pocket. You'd never guess what a pleasant state of
heart and soul I thus procure for myself. I often

io DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [iv

wait a quarter of an hour; at last I fall greedily upon
the packet, unseal it, and devour your lines your
dear lines ! Countless feelings awake in my heart
while I read your letter. So many tender and pain-
ful, sweet and bitter, emotions crowd into my soul
yes, dear brother, there are painful and bitter ones.
You cannot dream how bitter it is for me when
people don't understand me, when they mistake what
I say, and see it in the wrong light. After I had
read your last letter, I was quite enragi because you
were not near me; I saw the dearest dreams of my
heart, my most sacred principles, which I have won
by hard experience, wholly distorted, mutilated, de-
formed. You said to me yourself: " Do write to me,
contradict me, dispute with me." You anticipated
some profit therefrom. Dear brother, it has not been
of the least use ! The only thing that you have got
from it is, that in your egoism (we are all egoists, for
that matter) you have formed just such an opinion
of me, my views, ideas, and peculiarities, as happens
to suit yourself. And that is an extremely insulting
one ! No polemics in intimate letters are a subtle
poison. How will it be now, when we see one another
again ? I believe that all this will be subject for
endless contention. But enough of it.

Now for your verses hear me yet again, dear
brother ! I believe that in human life are infinite
pain and infinite joy. In the poet's life spring thorns
and roses. The lyric is like the poet's shadow, always
with him, for he is an articulate creature. Your lyric
poems are charming: " The Walk," " The Morning,"
" Visions of the Mother," " Roses," " The Horse of
Phoebus " these and many others are lovely. They
are all like a vital piece of news from you and a
piece of news that moves me profoundly. For in
those days I could understand you so well; and they

JET. 18] HIS BROTHER'S VERSES n

are months which have stamped themselves deeply in
my consciousness. How many strange and wondrous
things had I just then lived through ! It is a long
story, and I shall never. tell it to anyone.

When I last met Schidlovsky I took a walk with
him in Ekaterinhof. What an amazing talk we had
that evening ! We were recalling the past winter,
when we talked much of Homer, Shakespeare, Schiller,
and Hoffmann particularly Hoffmann. We spoke
of ourselves also, of the future, and of you, my dear
fellow. But he has been away "a long time now, and
I have no news of him. Is he still alive even ? For
his health was very bad. So do write to him !

All through last winter I was in a strangely exalted
mood. Intercourse with Schidlovsky had procured
me many hours of fuller life, though that was not
the only reason for my inspired state. You were,
perhaps, hurt with me, and may be even so still,
because I did not write to you at that time. Stupid
service-matters were the hindrance. I must con-
fess to you, my dear fellow, that though I have
always loved you, it was for your verses, for the
poetry of your life, for your sufferings . . . that was
all. It was neither brother-love nor comrade-love.
For I had with me at that time a friend, a man,
whom I did love so. You said once, brother, that I
had not read Schiller. You are mistaken. I have
him by heart, I have spoken his speech and dreamed
his dreams; and I believe that it was a peculiarly
good stroke of luck that made me acquainted with
the great poet in that special period of my life. I
could never have learnt to know Schiller so well as
precisely in those days. When I read Schiller with
hint, I saw in him the noble and fiery Don Carlos,
the Marquis Posa, and Mortimer. That friendship
was of great value to me, and has caused me great

12 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [iv

pain. But I desire to keep silence about it for ever.
The name of Schiller is for me a beloved and intimate
password, which awakens countless memories and
dreams. Those memories are bitter, and that is why
I have always avoided talking with you about Schiller
and the impressions which I owe to him. Even to
hear his name sets my heart aching.

I meant to answer other of your reproaches, and
show you that you have misunderstood me. About
other things besides I wanted to speak; but as I
write this letter, so. many sweet remembrances and
dreams come over me that 1 can talk of nothing else.
Only one reproach will I refer to namely, that those
great poets whom, according to you, I do not know
at all, I have nevertheless sought to compare closely
with one another. I never drew such a parallel as one
between Pushkin and Schiller. I can't imagine how
you came to think so ; pray cite me the passage in my
letter; it is just possible that I may have happened
to mention the names of Pushkin and Schiller in im-
mediate juxtaposition, but I believe that you will
find a comma between them. They have no smallest
point of resemblance. Now between Pushkin and
Byron one might speak of a likeness. But as to
Homer and Victor Hugo, I positively believe that you
have chosen to misunderstand me ! This is what I
meant : Homer (a legendary figure, who was perhaps
sent to us by God, as Christ was) can only be placed
with Christ ; by no means with Victor Hugo. Do try,
brother, to enter truly into the Iliad; read it atten-
tively (now confess that you never have read it).
Homer, in the Iliad, gave to the ancient world the
same organization in spiritual and earthly matters as
the modern world owes to Christ. Do you understand
me now ? Victor Hugo is a singer, clear as an angel,
and his poetry is chaste and Christian through and

JJT. 18] HOMER AND HUGO 13

through; no one is like him in that respect neither
Schiller (if Schiller is a Christian poet at all), nor the
lyric Shakespeare, nor Byron, nor Pushkin. I have
read his Sonnets in French. Homer alone has the
same unshakable belief in his vocation for poetry
and in the god of poetry whom he serves in that sole
respect his poetry is like Victor Hugo's, but not in
the ideas with which Nature gifted him, and which
he succeeded in expressing I never meant the ideas
at all, never. I even think that Dershavin stands
higher as a lyricist than either of those two. Fare
well, my dear fellow.

P.S. I must give you one more scolding. When
you talk about form in poetry, you seem to me quite
crazy. I mean it seriously. I noticed a long time
ago that in this respect you are not wholly normal.
Lately you let fall a remark of the kind about
Pushkin; I purposely did not take it up. Of your
own forms I'll speak at length in my next letter;
now I have neither room nor time. But do tell me
how, when you were talking about forms, you could
advance the proposition that neither Racine nor
Corneille could please us, because their forms were
bad ? You miserable wretch ! And then you add
with such effrontery: " Do you think, then, that they
were both bad poets ?" Racine no poet Racine
the ardent, the passionate, the idealist Racine, no
poet ! Do you dare to ask that ? Have you read
his " Andromaque " eh ? Have you read his
" Iphige"nie "? Will you by any chance maintain
that it is not splendid ? And isn't Racine's Achilles
of the same race as Homer's ? I grant you, Racine
stole from Homer, but in -what a fashion ! How
marvellous are his women ! Do try to apprehend
him. You say " Racine was no genius; how could he

14 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [iv

possibly (?) produce a drama ? He could only imi-
tate Corneille." What about " Phedre ?" Brother,
if you won't agree that " Phedre " is the highest and
purest poetry, I don't know what I shall think of you.
Why, there's the force of a Shakespeare in it, if the
medium is plaster of Paris instead of marble.

Now about Corneille. Listen again, brother ! I
really don't know how to talk to you; perhaps, like
Ivan Nikiforovitch, 1 I ought to eat a substantial
portion of herbs first. I cannot believe that you've
read him at all; that's why you talk such nonsense.
Why, don't you know that Corneille, with his titanic
figures and his romantic spirit, nearly approaches
Shakespeare ? You miserable wretch ! Do you
happen to know that it was not until fifty years later
than the inept miserable Jodelle (author of that dis-
gusting'" Cleopatre ") and Ronsard, who was a fore-
warning of our own Trediakovsky, that Corneille
made his appearance, and that he was almost a con-
temporary of the insipid poetaster Malherbe ? How
can you demand form from him ? It was as much
as one could expect that he should borrow his form
from Seneca. Have you read his " Cinna "? What,
before the divine figure of Octavius, becomes of Karl
Moor, of Fiesco, of Tell, of Don Carlos ? That work
would have done honour to Shakespeare. You
wretch ! If you haven't read it yet, read now at
least the dialogue between Augustus and Cinna,
where he forgives him for his treachery. Good
Heavens ! You will see that only offended seraphs
could so speak. Particularly the passage where
Augustus says: " Soyons amis, Cinna." Have you
read his " Horace "? Decidedly only in Homer can
you find such figures. Old Horace is another
Diomedes; young Horace an Ajax, son of Telamon,

1 The hero of a novel by Gogol.

&r. 18] CORNEILLE 15

but with the spirit of an Achilles ; Curias is Patrocles
and Achilles in one person; he is the very consum-
mation of conflicting love and duty. It's all so
lofty ! Have you read " Le Cid "? Read it, un-
happy man, and fall in the dust before Corneille. You
have blasphemed him. Anyhow, read him. What
does the romantic stand for, if it doesn't reach its
highest development in the " Cid "? How wonderful
are the figures of Don Rodrigo, of his son, and of
that son's beloved and then, the end !

Please don't be offended with me for my insulting
expressions; don't bear me ill-will, as Ivan Ivanovitch
Pererepenko did to Gogol.

V

To his Brother Michael

September 30, 1844.

[At first he speaks of the translation of Schiller,
which the brothers wished to publish.]

Yes, brother, indeed I know that my position is
desperate. I want to lay it before you now, just as it
is. I am retiring because I can serve no longer. Life
delights me not if I am to spend the best part of it
in such a senseless manner. Moreover, I never did
intend to remain long in the service why should I
waste my best years ? But the chief point is that
they wanted to send me to the provinces. Now, tell
me, pray, what should I be good for, out of Peters-
burg ? What could I do ? You will assuredly
understand me there.

As regards my future life, you really need not be
anxious. I shall always find means to support my-
self. I mean to work tremendously hard. And I

16 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [v

am free now. The only question is what I shall do
just for the moment. Think of it, brother: I owe
eight hundred roubles five hundred and twenty-
five for rent. (I have written home that I owe one
thousand five hundred, for I know the gentry there. 1
They always send me a third of what I ask for.)
Nobody knows yet that I am retiring. Now, what
shall I do at first, when I am no longer in the service ?
I haven't even the money to buy civilian clothes. I
retire on October 14. If I don't receive money from
Moscow at once, I am lost. Seriously, they will put
me in prison this is certain. It's a quaint situation.

[There is further discussion of how he shall get
money from his relatives.]

You say that my salvation lies in my drama. But
it will be a long time before it's played, and longer still
before I get any money for it. Meanwhile, my re-
tirement stares me in the face. (My dear fellow, if I
had not already sent in my papers,! should do so now;
I in no wise regret that step.) I have one hope more.
I am just finishing a novel, 2 about the length of
" Eugenie Grandet." It is most original. I am now
making the fair copy; by the I4th I ought certainly
to have an answer from the editor. I want to bring
it out in the Otetchestvennia Zapiski. 3 (I am well
pleased with my work.) I shall probably get four
hundred roubles for it that is all I hope for. I would
have liked to tell you more about the book, but I
haven't time. (I shall certainly produce the play,
anyhow. For that is the way I wish to make a
living.)

The Moscovians are incredibly stupid, conceited,

1 His father was now dead, and an uncle-in-law acted as
Dostoevsky's guardian.

2 His " Poor Folk." 3 " Annals of the Fatherland."

t. 22] " POOR FOLK " 17

and priggish. K. 1 in his last letter advises me, with
no apparent relevancy, not to let myself be so carried
away by Shakespeare. He says that Shakespeare is
only a soap-bubble. I wish you could explain to me
this ridiculous hostility against Shakespeare. Why
does he suddenly drag him in ? You should have
seen the answer I sent him ! It was a model in the
polemic style. I gave him a first-class snubbing.
My letters are masterpieces of the " literary art."

Brother, do, for God's sake, write home at once !
My situation is desperate. The I4th is the very
utmost limit of my time; I sent in my papers six
weeks ago. For Heaven's sake write to them, and
tell them to send me the money without delay ! It is
urgent, for otherwise I shall have no clothes. Chles-
takov (in Gogol's " Revisor ") was ready to go to
prison, but only " with all dignity." Now, how can
I, barefoot, go to prison " with all dignity "? . . .

My address : By the Vladimirkirche, care of Pryan-
ischnikof, Grafengasse.

I am extraordinarily pleased with my novel beside
myself with joy. For it I shall certainly get money;
but as for anything else. . . . Forgive this inco-
herent letter.

VI

To his Brother Michael

March 24, 1845.

You must have been burning with impatience for
ever so long, dearest brother The uncertainty of
my situation prevented me from writing. I can give
myself up to no employment, when only uncertainty
stares me in the face. Not that I have yet succeeded
1 Dobteevsky's guardian.

i8 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [vi

in regulating my affairs in any way; but despite this
unsettled state of things, I will write to you, for it is
so long since I have sent you a word.

I got five hundred roubles from the Moscow folk.
But I had so many old and new debts that the money
did not suffice for the printing. Still, it was not so
bad. I could either go on credit for the printing, or
else pay only half the household debts; but the novel
was not ready. I had finished it in November, but
in December I decided to alter it radically. I did so,
and wrote it out fair again ; then in February I began
once more to fiddle at it, polishing, cutting, adding.
Towards the middle of March I was ready, and
satisfied with my work. But there arose a fresh
obstacle: the Censor wanted a whole month for the
reading. It couldn't be done quicker. The officials
at the Censorship are said to be loaded down with
work. I didn't know what to do, and asked for the
manuscript back. For besides the four weeks for the
Censor, I had to reckon on three more for the print-
ing. So at earliest the book would appear in May.
That would have been too late ! Then people began
to urge me from all sides to send the novel to the
Otetchestvennia Zapiski. It would have been mad-
ness; I should certainly have rued it. In the first
place, they wouldn't have read the manuscript at all,
or, if they had, not for at least six months. They
have enough manuscripts lying about without getting
mine. And if they did print, I shouldn't get a penny
for it; for that paper is a pure oligarchy. What do
I want with fame, when I'm writing for daily bread ?
I took a desperate resolve to wait a little longer,
and in the meantime incur fresh debts. Towards the
beginning of September, when everyone will be in
Petersburg, sniffing about like bloodhounds for some-
thing new, I'll try with my last kopeck (which

ST. 23] " POOR FOLK " 19

probably won't nearly suffice) to get the book printed.
If I published in a magazine, I should come under
the yoke of not only the head mattre d'kdtel, but of
all the kitchen wenches and urchins who swarm
wherever culture is in the making. It's not a ques-
tion pf one dictator, but twenty. While if I print
the novel at my own expense, I may make my way
by my own ability; and if the book is good, it won't
be overlooked it may even get me out of debt, and
rescue me from anxiety about the means of sub-
sistence.

And now to those means of subsistence ! You
know well, dear brother, that I have been thrown on
my own resources in that respect. But I have vowed
to myself that, however hard it may go with me, I'll
pull myself together, and in no circumstances will I
work to order. Work done to order would oppress
and blight me. I want each of my efforts to be
incontrovertibly good. Just look at Pushkin and
Gogol. Both wrote very little, yet both have
deserved national memorials. Gogol now gets a
thousand roubles a printed page, while Pushkin had,
as you know well, as much as a ducat a line of verse.
Both but particularly Gogol bought their fame at
the price of years of dire poverty. The old school is
going to pieces; and the new school doesn't write it
scribbles. Talent is universally squandered in striv-
ing after a " broad conception," wherein all one can
discover is a monstrous inchoate idea and colossal
muscular effort. There is hardly any real serious work
in the business. Beranger said of the modern French
feuilletonists that their work was like a bottle of
Chambertin in a bucket of water. And our people
are the same. Raphael worked for many years at
each picture, and lingered long over every detail,
therefore he created masterpieces. Gods grew under

20 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [vi

his brush ! And to-day Vernet gets a picture ready
in a month, and each needs a huge room, built
expressly. The perspective is grandiose, the concep-
tion colossal but there's not a ha'porth of serious
work in the thing. They are all no better than
house-painters.

I am really pleased with my novel. It is a serious
and well-constructed work. But it has terrible short-
comings, too. Seeing it in print will make up to me
for everything else. Now, while I have as yet no new
ideas, I should rather like to write something that
would introduce me to the public, or even for the
mere money's sake; not that I should at all wish to
write rubbish, but for anything really serious I need
a lot of time.

It is getting near the time, my dears, that I had
hoped to spend with you all. But I shall not have
the means, that is the money, for it. I have decided
to stay on in my old abode. For here I have, at any
rate, a contract with the landlord, and need not worry
myself about anything for six months. It's simply a
case of my novel covering all \ If I fail in this, I'll
hang myself.

I should like to have saved at least three hundred
roubles by August. I can have the book printed for
that. But the roubles run about like crabs in every
direction. I had about four hundred worth of debts
(including the new expenses and clothes); now I'm
decently dressed for at least two years. But I really
will come to you, anyhow. Write as soon as possible
and say what you think about my staying on here.
It is a crucial question. But what else can I do ?

You write that you are terrified of the resourceless

future. But Schiller will set right all that, and,

besides, my novel may bring in something. Write

soon. By the next post I'll tell you all my decisions.

* * * * #

^T. 23] % DRAMA 21

Kiss the children from me, and greet Emilie
Fyodorovna. 1 I often think of you all. Perhaps it
will interest you to know what I do when I'm not
writing well, I read. I read a great deal, and it
has a curious effect on me. When I re-read anything
that I knew years ago, I feel fresh powers in myself.
I can pierce to the heart of the book, grasp it entire,
and from it draw new confidence in myself. Of
the writing of plays I don't want to know anything.
To do one I should need years of repose and hard
study. It is easy enough, indeed, to write plays to-
day ; the drama is more like melodrama. Shakespeare
disappears in the fog. He looks, amid the fumes of
our wretched modern drama, like a god, or a spectre
of the Brocken. In the summer I shall, nevertheless,
perhaps try again to write one. Just let us wait two
or even three years ! Brother, in literary matters
I am not the same person that I was a couple of
years ago. Then it was all childishness and folly.
These two years of hard study have taken much from
me, and brought much to me.

In the Invalide lately I read in the feuilleton about
the German writers who died of hunger, cold, or in
a mad-house. They were twenty in all and what
names! Even still it gives me the creeps. It's
better to be a charlatan, really. . . .

VII

To his Brother Michael

May 4, 1845.

DEAREST BROTHER,

Forgive my not having written for so long.
I have, as usual, had such a confounded lot to do.
My novel, which I simply can't break loose from,
1 Michael Dostoevsky's wife.

22 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [vil

keeps me endlessly at work. If I had known before-
hand how it would be, I should never have begun it
at all. I decided to do it all over again, and, by
God ! that has improved it a lot. Now I'm ready
with it once more, and this revision is really the last.
I have given myself my word not to touch it again.
After all, it's the fate of all first books to be altered
over and over again. I don't know whether Chateau-
briand's " Atala " was his first book, but I do know
that he re-wrote it seventeen times. Pushkin did
just the same with quite short poems. Gogol used
to polish away at his wonderful works for two years
at a time, and if you have read the " Sentimental
Journey," that witty book by Sterne, you'll very
likely remember what Walter Scott, in his article on
Sterne, says with reference to Sterne's servant, La
Fleur. La Fleur declared that his master had filled
about two hundred quires of paper with the descrip-
tion of his j ourney through France. Now, the ques-
tion is, What became of all that paper ? The result
was a little book, for writing which a parsimonious
person (such as, for example, Plyushkin 1 ) would have
used half a quire. I can't understand at all how that
same Walter Scott could turn out such finished
works as " Mannering " in a few weeks. Perhaps
only because at that time he was forty years old.

I don't in the least know, brother, what will become
of me ! You judge me falsely when you maintain
that my situation doesn't trouble me a bit. It
worries me frightfully, and I often cannot sleep for
nights and nights because of my tormenting thoughts.
Wise folk tell me that I shall come to the ground
if I publish the novel as a book. They admit that
the book will be a very good one, but say that I am

1 A character in Gogol's " Dead Souls " the incarnation
of avarice.

*r. 23 METHODS OF PUBLICATION 23

no business man . . . and that the booksellers are
usurers ; that they will rob me as a matter of course,
and I, as sure as death, shall let them.

For these reasons I have resolved to bring out the
novel in a journal for example, the Otetchestvennia
Zapiski. That has an edition of 2,500 copies, con-
sequently it is read by at least 100,000 people. If
I let the novel appear in this journal, my literary
career and my whole future life are assured. I might
easily make my fortune by it. And thus I shall gain
a firm footing in the paper, and shall always have
money; and if my novel appears in the August or
September number, I can bring it out as a book on
my own account in October, and that with the certain
prospect that everyone who buys novels at all will
get it. Moreover, the advertisement will cost me
nothing. Well, so things stand !

Until I have arranged for the novel, I cannot come
to Reval; I don't want to waste any of my time. I
must not flinch at any amount of hard work. I have,
besides, a lot of new ideas, which will make a name
for me in literature as soon as my first book has
forged a path for me. These are, in short, my only
views for the future.

But as to money, I have none, alas ! The devil
knows where it's gone to. But, at all events, f have
few debts. . . .

When once I have produced the novel, I shall
easily be able to arrange for your Schiller translation
also, as true as I live ! The " Juif Errant " isn't bad.
But Sue strikes me as very limited in range.

I don't like to speak of it, dear brother, but your
situation and the fate of your Schiller worry me so
much that I often forget my own anxieties. And
I really have not an easy time of it.

If I can't publish the novel, I shall probably go into

24 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [vm

the Neva. What else should I do ? I have thought
of every single thing. I could not survive the death
of my fixed idea.
Write to me soon, for I am sick of myself.

VIII

To his Brother Michael

October 8, 1845.

DEAREST BROTHER,

Until now I have had neither time nor spirits
to write you anything about my own affairs. Every-
thing was disgusting and hateful, and the whole world
seemed a desert. In the first place, I had no money
all the time, and was living on credit, which is most
unpleasant, my dear and only friend. In the second,
I was in that wretched mood wherein one loses all
courage, yet does not fall into dull indifference
rather, which is much worse, thinks a great deal too
much about one's self, and rages uncontrollably.

At the beginning of this month Nekrassov 1 came
to me and paid me back part of his debt; the rest
I am to have in a few days. I must tell you that
Bielinsky 2 gave me, a fortnight ago, a comprehensive
lesson on how to live in the literary world. As a con-
clusion he told me that, for my soul's sake, I must
not ask less than two hundred roubles a printed sheet.
In that case my " Goliadkin " 3 would bring me in at
least fifteen hundred roubles. Nekrassov, who was

1 Nikolay Alexeyevitch Nekrassov (1821-77), a noted writer
of Liberal tendencies ; he edited from 1846 to 1866 the monthly
magazine established by Pushkin, Sovremennik ( - The Con-
temporary) .

2 Vissarion Grigoryevitch Bielinsky, a most distinguished
Russian critic, of extreme Liberal tendency.

3 " The Double."

JET. 24] HOPES OF FAME 25

evidently conscience-stricken, anticipated him, and
promised me on January 15 a hundred roubles more
for my " Poor Folk," which he has acquired from me.
He felt obliged to confess to me himself that a fee of a
hundred and fifty roubles was absolutely un-Christian,
so he has raised it by a hundred.

This is all very nice indeed. But it is most un-
pleasant to have still no word from the Censor about
" Poor Folk." They have kidnapped that guileless
novel, and I don't know what will be the end thereof.
And suppose they forbid it to appear ? Or strike out
every word of it ? It is a real calamity ! Nekrassov
tells me, too, that his Almanac won't be able to appear
at the right time, and that that undertaking has
already cost him four thousand roubles.

Jakov Petrovitch Goliadkin is a bad hat ! He is
utterly base, and I positively can't manage him. He
won't move a step, for he always maintains that he
isn't ready; that he's mere nothingness as yet, but
could, if it were necessary, show his true character;
then why won't he ? And after all, he says, he's no
worse than the rest. What does he care about my
toil ? Oh, a terribly base fellow ! In no case can he
bring his career to a finish before the middle of
November. He has already had an interview with
His Excellency, and is not disinclined to take his
leave as, indeed, he well may. Me, his poor author,
he is putting in a hole.

I often go to Bielinsky's. He's inordinately affec-
tionate, seeing in me a vindication of his views to the
public. I have lately made the acquaintance of
Kroneberg, the translator of Shakespeare (he's a son
of the old Professor from Charkov). My future and
certainly the immediate future may shape itself, on
the whole, most favourably, but may also turn out
very badly indeed. Bielinsky urges me to finish my

26 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [vm

" Goliadkin." He has already spread the fame of that
novel through the entire literary world, and almost
sold it to Krayevsky. 1 Half Petersburg is talking of
" Poor Folk." A good word from Grigorovitch 2
carries weight, and he said to me myself the other
day: " Je suis votre claqueur-chauffeur."

Nekrassov is always full of wild schemes. It is
a condition of his being he was born like that.
Directly he arrived here, he came to me one evening
and unfolded a plan for a little " flying " Almanac
into which the whole literary community should put
their backs; but at the head of the editorial staff
are to be myself, Grigorovitch, and Nekrassov. The
last will take the financial risk. The Almanac is to
consist of two sheets, and to appear fortnightly
on the 7th and 2ist of the month. It is to be called
Suboskal (The Scoffer}. We mean to ridicule and jeer
at everything without mercy the theatres, news-
p*apers, society, literature, daily happenings, exhibi-
tions, advertisements, foreign news in short, every-
thing; the whole is to be done with one tendency
and in one spirit. The first number is to appear on
November 7. It is wonderfully compounded. In the
first place, there are to be illustrations as well. As
motto we take the famous words of Bulgarin 3 in his
feuilleton in the S&vernala Ptchela (Northern Bee] :
" We are ready to die for the truth, for we cannot
live without truth," etc. Underneath we shall put
Faddey Bulgarin's signature. The prospectus, which
will appear on November i, will have the same motto.
The first number will contain the following contri-

1 Editor of the Otetchestvennia Zapiski.

2 Dmitri Vassilivitch Grigorovitch (1822-99), a popular
writer; author of numerous romances and novels. A col-
league of Dostoevsky in the College of Engineering.

3 Faddey Bulgarin (1789-1859), a journalist in the pay of
the police; hated and feared as a denouncer and secret agent.

.1. 24] A SATIRIC PAPER 27

butions: A sort of " send-off," by Nekrassov, " On
Certain Petersburg Basenesses " (those, of course,
which have just then been perpetrated) ; an " antici-
pated " novel by Eugene Sue, " The Seven Deadly
Sins" (the whole thing will be in three pages); a
review of all the journals; a lecture " after " Schevi-
rov, on Pushkin's verses: they are so harmonious,
that when Schevirov once at the Coliseum in Rome,
in company with some ladies, recited a few strophes,
all the frogs and lizards that house there came creep-
ing out to hear the wondrous stanzas (Schevirov gave
just such a discourse in the Moscow University).
Then comes a report of the last sitting of the Society
of Slavophils, whereat it was solemnly maintained
that Adam was a Slav and lived in Russia; it will be
pointed out how important and useful is the settling
of this question for the well-being of the whole Russian
nation. In the art section, our Suboskal will declare
itself at one with Kukolnik's Illustration, and call
particular attention to the following passage in that
journal [one where the letters and words were printed
upside down and in the wrong order], for it is well
known that the Illustration is so badly edited and
proof-read that topsy-turvy letters and words running
into one another are quite normal occurrences. Grigo-
rovitch will write a " Chronicle of the Week," and
take a rise out of people with his " things seen." I
am to write " Observations of a Valet on his Master."
The paper will, as you see, be highly diverting
something in the style of the Gulpes of Alphonse Karr.
The notion is dazzling, for to me alone will come, at
the very lowest estimate, from a hundred to a hundred
and fifty roubles a month. The sheet will succeed.
Nekrassov will do some verse, too.

... On no account miss reading " Teverino " (by
George Sand, in the Otetchestvennia Zapiski for

28 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [ix

October). There has been nothing like it in our
century. It gives us absolute archetypes of human
character. . . .

IX
To his Brother Michael

November 16, 1845.

DEAREST BROTHER,

I write in great haste, for my time is very
short. " Goliadkin " is still not ready, but I abso-
lutely must have him finished by the 25th. You
haven't written to me for so long that I have been
worried about you. Do write oftener; what you say
about lack of time is nonsense. Does one really need
much time to write a letter ? Provincial life, with
its eternal do-nothingness, is simply ruining you, my
dear fellow that's all.

Well, brother, I believe that my fame is just now
in its fullest flower. Everywhere I meet with the
most amazing consideration and enormous interest.
I have made the acquaintance of a lot of very im-
portant people. Prince Odoyevsky begs me for the
honour of a visit, and Count Sollogub is tearing his
hair in desperation. Panayev told him that a new
genius had arisen who would sweep all the rest away.
S. tore round, called on Krayevsky among others, and
asked him quite bluntly: "Who is Dostoevsky ?
Where can I get hold of Dostoevsky ?" Krayevsky,
who is without respect of persons and snubs every-
body, gave him for answer: "Dostoevsky won't be
at all inclined to give you the honour and pleasure of
his acquaintance." It was just the right word, for the
youngster is now on his high horse, and hopes to
crush me to the earth with his gracious condescension.
Everybody looks upon me as a wonder of the world.

ST. 24] FAME AND ELATION 29

If J but open my mouth, the air resounds with what
Dostoevsky said, what Dostoevsky means to do.
Bielinsky loves me unboundedly. The writer Tur-
genev, who has just returned from Paris, has from the
first been more than friendly; and Bielinsky declares
that Turgenev has quite lost his heart to me. T. is
a really splendid person ! I've almost lost my own
heart to him. A highly gifted writer, an aristocrat,
handsome, rich, intelligent, cultured, and only twenty-
five I really don't know what more he could ask
from fate. Besides all that, he has an unusually
upright, fine, well-disciplined nature. Do read his
story, " Andrey Kolossov," in the Otetchestvennia
Zapiski. The hero is himself, though he did not
intend to depict his own character.

I am not rich yet, though I can't complain of
poverty. Lately I was quite penniless for the
moment; Nekrassov has since then taken up the
idea of publishing a most attractive sort of humorous
Almanac, to be called Suboskal, and I have written
the prospectus. It made a great sensation, for it
is the first attempt there has been to write such
productions in a light and humorous manner. It
reminded me of the first feuilleton of Lucien de
Rubempre. 1 It has already appeared in the 0. Z.,
and in another paper. I got twenty roubles for the
job. When I found myself without a penny in my
pocket, I went to call on Nekrassov. While I was
sitting with him, I had a sudden idea of writing a
novel in nine letters. As soon as I got home, I wrote
it in one night: it takes about half a sheet. In the
morning I took the manuscript to Nekrassov, and
got 125 roubles for it, so the Suboskal pays me at
the rate of 250 roubles a sheet. In the evening my
novel was read aloud in our circle that is, before an
1 In Balzac's " Illusions perdues."

30 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [ix

audience of twenty, and had a colossal success. It
will appear in the first number of the Suboskal.
I'll send you the number for December i. Bielinsky
says he is quite sure of me now, for I have the faculty
of grasping the most diverse subjects. When Kra-
yevsky heard lately that I had no money, he begged
me quite humbly to accept a loan of 500 roubles.
I think that I shall get 200 roubles a sheet from
him.

I have a lot of new ideas and if I confide any of
them to anybody, for instance Turgenev, by next
morning it will be rumoured in every corner of
Petersburg that Dostoevsky is writing this or that.
Indeed, brother, if I were to recount to you all
my triumphs, this paper would by no means suffice.
I think that I shall soon have plenty of money.
" Goliadkin " thrives mightily: it will be my master-
piece. Yesterday I was at P.'s house for the first
time, and I have a sort of idea that I have fallen in
love with his wife. She is wise and beautiful,
amiable, too, and unusually direct. I am having a
good time. Our circle is very extensive. But I'm
writing about nothing but myself forgive me, dear
fellow; I will frankly confess to you that I am quite
intoxicated by my fame. With my next letter I'll
send you the Suboskal. Bielinsky says that I pro-
faned myself by collaborating in it.

Farewell, my friend, I wish you luck, and con-
gratulate you on your promotion. I kiss the hands
of your Emilie Fyodorovna, and hug the children.
How are they all ?

P.S. Bielinsky is keeping the publishers from
tearing me to pieces. I've read this letter over, and
come to two conclusions that I write atrociously,
and that I'm a boaster.

JET. 24] RECEPTION OF " POOR FOLK " 31

Farewell, and for God's sake, write. Our Schiller
will certainly come off. Bielinsky praises the idea of
publishing the collected works. I believe that in
time I shall be able to make good terms for the
work perhaps with Nekrassov. Farewell.

All the Minnas, Claras, Mariannas, etc., have got
amazingly pretty, but cost a lot of money. Turgenev
and Bielinsky lately gave me a talking to about my
disorderly way of life. Those fellows really don't
know how they can best prove their affection they
are all in love with me.

X

To his Brother Michael

February i, 1846.

DEAREST BROTHER,

To begin with, don't be angry because I
haven't written for so long. I swear to God that
I've had no time, as I shall now show you. I was
prevented chiefly by that rascal " Goliadkin," with
whom I never finished till the 28th. It's frightful !
And it's always the same whenever one promises
one's-self anything. I meant to get done with him
in August, but had to put off till February. Now
I am sending you the Almanac. " Poor Folk "
appeared on the I5th. If you only knew, brother,
how bitterly the book has been abused ! The
criticism in the Illustration was one unbroken
tirade. And that in the Severna'ia Ptchela (Northern
Bee] is incredible, too; but at all events, I can remind
myself how Gogol was received by the critics, and
we both know the things that were written about
Pushkin. Even the public is quite furious: three-
fourths of my readers abuse, and a quarter (or even

32 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [x

less) praise the book beyond measure. It is the
subject of endless discussion. They scold, scold,
scold, yet they read it. (The Almanac has gone off
amazingly well. The whole edition is certain to be
sold out in a fortnight.) And it was the same with
Gogol. They abused, abused, but read him. Now
they've made up that quarrel, and praise him. I've
thrown a hard bone to the dogs, but let them worry
at it fools ! they but add to my fame. The notice
in the Northern Bee is a disgrace to their critic: It's
stupid beyond belief. But then, the praise I get,
too ! Only think, all our lot, and even Bielinsky,
consider that I have far surpassed Gogol. In the
Book-lover's Library, where the critiques are written
by Nikitenko, there is soon to be a very long and
favourable notice of " Poor Folk." Bielinsky will
ring a full peal in March. Odoyevsky is devoting
his whole article to '' Poor Folk " alone; my friend
Sollogub likewise. So I'm in the empyrean, brother,
and three months hence I'll tell you in person of all
my experiences.

Our public, like the crowd everywhere, has good
instincts, but no taste. They cannot understand how
anyone can write in such a style. They are accus-
tomed to be treated, in every work, to the author's
own fads and fancies. Now I have chosen not to
show mine. They will not perceive that this or
that view is expressed by Dyevuschkin, not by me,
and that he could not speak otherwise. They find
the book too drawn out, and yet there is not a single
superfluous word in it. Many, like Bielinsky, think
very original my manner of proceeding by analysis
rather than by synthesis that is, I pierce to the
depths, trace out the atoms, and from them construct
the whole. Gogol always works on the broad lines,
and so he never goes as deep as I do. When you

^x. 24] BAD HEALTH 33

read my book, you'll see this for yourself. I have a
brilliant future before me! Today my " Goliad-
kin " appears. Four days ago I was still working at
him. He will fill eleven sheets of the Otetschest-
vennia Zapiski. " Goliadkin " is ten times better than
" Poor Folk." Our lot say that there has been
nothing like it in Russia since " Dead Souls," and
that it is a truly brilliant achievement; they even
say more. What don't they look for from me !
" Goliadkin " really has come off well. You will be
sure to like him enormously. Do they take the 0. Z.
in your part of the world ? I don't know if Krayevsky
will give me a free copy.

I haven't written to you for so long, dear brother,
that I really don't know what I told you last. So
much has been happening ! We shall soon see one
another again. In the summer I shall positively come
to you, my friends, and shall write tremendously the
whole time. I have ideas; and I'm writing now, too.

For " Goliadkin " I got exactly 600 roubles. And
I've earned a lot of money besides, so that since
our last meeting I've run through more than
3,000 roubles. I do live in a very disorderly way,
and that's the truth ! . . . My health is utterly
shattered. I am neurotic, and dread low fever. I am
so dissolute that I simply can't live decently any
more. . . .

XI
To his Brother Michael

April i, 1846.

You do reproach me, don't you, because I have not
written for so long ? But I take my stand upon
Poprischtschin's 1 saying: " Letters are rubbish; only

1 Hero of Gogol's " Memoirs of a Madman."

3

34 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xi

apothecaries write letters." What could I have said
to you ? If I had told all I had to tell, it would have
taken volumes. Every day brings me so much that
is new, so many changes and impressions, agreeable
and disagreeable, lucky and unlucky, matters, that
I have no time to reflect upon them. In the first
place, I'm always busy. I have heaps of ideas, and
write incessantly. But don't imagine that mine is
a bed of roses. Far from it. To begin with, I've
spent a very great deal of money that is to say,
exactly 4,500 roubles since our last meeting, and
got about a thousand for my wares. Thus, with that
economy of mine which you know so well, I have
positively robbed myself, and so it often happens that
I am quite penniless. . . .

But that doesn't signify. My fame has reached its
highest point. In the course of two months I have,
by my own reckoning, been mentioned five-and-thirty
times in different papers. In certain articles I've been
praised beyond measure, in others with more reserve,
and in others, again, frightfully abused. What could
I ask for more ? But it does pain and trouble me
that my own friends, Bielinsky and the others, are
dissatisfied with my " Goliadkin." The first impres-
sion was blind enthusiasm, great sensation, and endless
argument. The second was the really critical one.
They all that is, my friends and the whole public
declare with one voice that my " Goliadkin " is tedious
and thin, and so drawn-out as to be almost unread-
able. One of our lot is now going in for the perusal
of one chapter a day, so that he may not tire himself,
and in this way he smacks his lips with joy over it.
Some of the public say emphatically that the book
is quite impossible, that no one could really read it,
that it's madness to write and print such stuff; others,
again, declare that everything is from the life, and

JET. 24] SHORT, STORIES 35

that they recognize themselves in the book; now
and again, it is true, I hear such hymns of praise that
I should be ashamed to repeat them. As to myself,
I was for some time utterly discouraged. I have
one terrible vice: I am unpardonably ambitious and
egotistic. The thought that I had disappointed all
the hopes set on me, and spoilt what might have
been a really significant piece of work, depressed me
very heavily. The thought of " Goliadkin " made me
sick. I wrote a lot of it too quickly, and in moments
of fatigue. The first half is better than the second.
Alongside many brilliant passages are others so dis-
gustingly bad that I can't read them myself. All
this put me in a kind of hell for a time; I was actually
ill with vexation. Dear brother, I'll send you the
book in a fortnight. Read it, and give me your honest
opinion.

I'll go over my life and work of late and tell you
some bits of news:

ist. A big bit: Bielinsky is giving up the editor-
ship of the 0. Z. His health is sadly shattered, and
he is going to a spa, perhaps in foreign parts. For a
couple of years or so he will write no criticism at all.
To bolster up his finances, he is publishing an Almanac
of fabulous size sixty sheets. I am writing two tales
for him: " The Whiskers that were Shaved Off," and
" The Story of the Abolished Public Offices." Both
are overwhelmingly tragic, and extraordinarily inter-
esting told most curtly. The public awaits them
eagerly. Both are short tales. . . . Besides these, I
am to do something for Krayevsky, and write a novel
for Nekrassov. The whole lot will take about a year.
The " Whiskers " are ready now.

2nd bit of news: A whole crowd of newrwriters
have popped up. In some I divine rivals. Particu-
larly interesting are Herzcii (Iskander) and Gont-

36 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xn

scharov. Herzen has published some things.
Gontscharov is only beginning, and has not yet been
printed. Both are immensely praised. But at
present I have the top place, and hope to keep it for
ever. In literary life there was never such activity as
now. It is a good sign.

[Here follow some unimportant details of Dos-
toevsky's life. He gives his brother, among other
things, the advice to translate Goethe's " Reineke
Fuchs."]

XII

To his Brother Michael

September 17, 1846.

I have already told you that I've rented a house.
I'm not in distress, but I have no outlook for the
future. Krayevsky has given me fifty roubles, but I
could read in his face that he'll give me no more, so I
shall have a pretty stiff time.

In a certain quarter (the Censorship) they have
mutilated my " Prochartschin " frightfully. The gen-
tlemen have even God knows why struck out the
wosd " official." The whole thing was, for that matter,
entirely without offence, yet they've cut it to pieces.
They've simply killed the book dead. There is only
a skeleton left of what I read to you. Henceforth I
renounce that work of mine. ... I am still writing
at the " Whiskers." The work goes very slowly. I
fear it won't be ready in time. I heard from two
men, namely Grigorovitch and a certain Beketov II.,
that the Petersburg Almanac 1 is known in the
provinces only by the name of " Poor Folk." The
rest of the contents don't interest people in the least ;

1 Peterbourgsky Shornik.

MT. 25] SHORT STORIES ABANDONED 37

and the sale in the provinces is colossal, they often
pay double prices. At the booksellers' in Pensa and
Kiev, for instance, the Almanac is officially priced at
from 25 to 30 roubles. It is really remarkable; here
the book fell flat, and there they scramble for it.

Grigorovitch has written a truly wonderful story.
Myself and Maikov (who, by-the-bye, wants to write
a long article on me) have arranged for it to appear
in the 0. Z. That journal is, by the way, in very low
water; they haven't a single story in reserve.

Here we are frightfully dull. And so work goes
badly. I lived in a sort of paradise with you; when
things do go well with me, I ruin everything by my
damnable character. .

XIII
To his Brother Michael

[Undated] 1846.

DEAREST BROTHER,

I mean to write to you only a few lines, for I
have a terrible crop of worries, and my situation is
desperate. The truth is that all my plans have come
to naught. The volume of stories is done for, be-
cause not a single one of the tales I told you about
lately has come off. Even the " Whiskers " I have
abandoned. I've abandoned the whole lot, for they
are nothing but a repetition of old stuff, long since
given forth by me. I have heaps of original, vital,
and lucid thoughts that all yearn to come to the
birth. When I had written the conclusion of the
" Whiskers " I saw this all by myself. In my posi-
tion, any monotony is fatal.

I am writing a new story, and the work, as with
" Poor Folk," goes easily and lightly. I had intended

38 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xiv

this tale for Krayevsky. The gentlemen on the
Sovremennik may resent this; it will affect me but
little. If I have this story ready in January, I shall
print nothing till the following year; I want to write
a novel, and shan't rest till I do.

But that I may live in the meantime, I intend
to bring out " Poor Folk " and the over-written
" Goliadkin " in book-form.

XIV

To his Brother Michael

November 26, 1846.

All my plans about publishing have fallen through.
The whole idea, however, was doubtfully profitable,
needed much time, and was possibly premature.
The public might have held off. I mean to post-
pone all that till next autumn. I shall by then be
better known, and my position will be more defined.
Besides, I have some money coming in. " Goliadkin "
is now being illustrated by an artist in Moscow,
and two artists here are doing pictures for " Poor
Folk." Whichever does them best, gets the com-
mission. Bernardsky 1 tells me that in February he
wants to do business with me, and will pay me a
certain sum for the right to publish my works with
his illustrations. Till now he has been occupied with
the illustrations to " Dead Souls." In a word, the
publishing plans no longer interest me. Moreover,
I have no time. I have a lot of work and commis-
sions. I must tell you that I have broken off all
relations with the Sovremennik as far as Nekrassov
represents it. He was vexed because I wrote also

1 At that time a popular engraver and book-illustrator.

JET. 25] BUSINESS QUARRELS 39

for Krayevsky (as I had to do, so as to work off his
advances of money to me), and because I would not
make the public declaration which he desired, saying
that I no longer was on the editorial staff of the
0. Z. When he saw that he could get no new work
from me in the immediate future, he flung various
rudenesses at my head, and was foolish enough to
demand money from me. I took him at his word,
and drew up a promissory note which covered the
whole amount, payable on December 15. I mean to
see them coming to me hat in hand. As soon as I
roundly abused Nekrassov, he curtsied and whimpered
like a Jew that's been robbed. In short, it's a shabby
story. Now they are spreading it about that I'm off
my head with conceit, and have sold myself to
Krayevsky, because Maikov praises me in his paper.
Nekrassov henceforth means to drag me down. But
as to Bielinsky, he is so pliable that even about
literary matters he changes his views five times a
week. With him alone have I kept up my former
happy relations. He's a thoroughly good fellow.
Krayevsky was so delighted by this whole affair that
he gave me money, and promised besides to pay all
my debts up to December 15. Therefore I must
work for him until the early New Year.

Now look, brother from the whole business I have
deduced a sage rule. First, the budding author of
talent injures himself by having friendly relations
with the publishers and proprietors of journals, the
consequence of which is that those gentry take
liberties and behave shabbily. Moreover, the artist
must be independent; and finally, he must conse-
crate all his toil to the holy spirit of art such toil
is holy, chaste, and demands single-heartedness; my
own heart thrills now as never before with all the
new imaginings that come to life in my soul.

40 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xiv

Brother, I am undergoing not only a moral, but a
physical, metamorphosis. Never before was there in
me such lucidity, such inward wealth; never before
was my nature so tranquil, nor my health so satis-
factory, as now. I owe this in great measure to my
good friends: Beketov, Saliubezky, and the others
with whom I live. They are honest, sensible fellows,
with fine instincts and affections, and noble, steadfast
characters. Intercourse with them has healed me.
Finally, I suggested that "we should live together.
We took a big house all to ourselves, and go share
and share alike in all the housekeeping expenses,
which come, at the most, to 1,200 roubles a head
annually. So great are the blessings of the com-
munal system ! I have a room to myself, and work
all day long.

XV

To his Brother Michael

1847.
DEAR BROTHER,

I must once more beg you to forgive me for
not having kept my word, and written by the next
post. But through all the meantime I have been so
depressed in spirit that I simply could not write. I
have thought of you with so much pain your fate
is truly grievous, dear brother ! With your feeble
health, your turn of mind, your total lack of com-
panionship, living in one perpetual tedium unvaried
by any little festive occasions, and then the constant
care about your family care which is sweet to you,
yet nevertheless weighs you down like a heavy yoke
why, your life is unbearable. But don't lose
courage, brother. Better days will come. And
know this, the richer we are in mind and spirit,

MICHAEL DOSTOEVSKY.

JJT. 25] PHARISEES 41

the fairer will our life appear. It is indeed true
that the dissonance and lack of equilibrium between
ourselves and society is a terrible thing. External
and internal things should be in equilibrium. For,
lacking external experiences, those of the inward life
will gain the upper hand, and that is most dangerous.
The nerves and the fancy then take up too much
room, as it were, in our consciousness. Every
external happening seems colossal, and frightens
us. We begin to fear life. It is at any rate a
blessing that Nature has gifted you with powers of
affection and strength of character. You have,
besides, a vigorous, healthy mind, sparkles of dia-
mond-like wit, and a happy nature. This is your
salvation. I always think of you a great deal. My
God, there are so many sour-faced, small-souled,
narrow-minded, hoary-headed philosophers, professors
of the art of existence, Pharisees, who pride them-
selves on their " experience of life " that is to say,
their lack of individuality (for they are all cut on the
same pattern) ; and who are good for nothing at all,
with their everlasting preachments about content-
ment with one's destiny, faith in something or other,
modest demands from life, acceptance of the station
one finds one's-self in, and so on never once thinking
about the sense of any of those words; for their con-
tentment is that of cloistered self -castration ; they
judge with unspeakably paltry animosity the vehe-
ment, ardent nature of him who refuses to accept
their insipid " daily-task " calendar of existence. Oh,
how vulgar are all these preachers of the falseness of
earthly joys how vulgar, every one ! Whenever I
fall into their hands, I suffer the torments of hell. . . .

[Here follows the description of a visitor who had
enraged Dostoevsky with his " vulgarities."]

42 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xv

I wish so much to see you again. Sometimes a
nameless grief possesses me. I can't help thinking
perpetually how moody and " edgey " I was when
with you at Reval. I was ill then. I remember still
how you once said to me that my behaviour towards
you excluded all sense of equality between us. My
dear brother, that was unjust. I have indeed, it is
true, an evil, repellent character. But I have always
ranked you above myself. I could give my life for you
and yours; but even when my heart is warm with
love, people often can't get so much as one friendly
word out of me. At such times I have lost control of
my nerves. I appear ludicrous, repellent, and have to
suffer inexpressibly from the misunderstanding of my
fellow-creatures. People call me arid and heartless.
How often have I been rude to Emilie Fyodorovna,
your wife, who is a thousand times my superior ! I
remember, too, that frequently I was cross with your
son Fedya for no reason at all, though at the very time
I loved him perhaps even more than I loved you. I
can show myself to be a man of feeling and humour
only when external circumstances lift me high above
the external daily round. When that is not my
state, I am always repellent. I account for these
disparities by my malady. Have you read " Lucretia
Floriani "? Take a look at the " King " too. But
soon you'll be able to read my " Netotschka Nesva-
nova." That story, like " Goliadkin," will be a self-
confession, though different in tone. About " Goliad-
kin " I often happen to hear such expressions of
opinion that I get quite frightened. Many say that
it is a veritable, as yet uncomprehended, marvel, that
it will have enormous significance in the future, and
that by itself alone it is enough to make me famous;
some think it more exciting than Dumas. Now I'm
beginning again to praise myself. But it is so delight-

ST. 25] DUBIOUS FAME 43

ful, brother, to be rightly understood ! For what,
actually, do you love me so much ? I'll see to it that
somehow we meet again very soon. Won't we love
one another, that's all ! Wish me success. I am now
working at " The Mistress of the Inn." It is getting
on more easily than " Poor Folk " did. The story is in
the same manner. A flow of inspiration, which comes
from my inmost soul, is guiding my pen. It is quite
different from what it was with " Prochartschin,"
from which I suffered the whole summer through.
How I wish I could soon help you, brother. Depend,
as on a rock, on the money that I promised you. Kiss
all your dear ones for me. In the meantime I am

Thy

DOSTOEVSKY.

XVI

To his Brother Michael

[Postscript to a longer business letter, early in the
year 1847.]

You will scarcely believe it. Here is the third year
of my literary activity, and I am as if in a dream. I
don't see the life about me at all, I have no time to
become conscious of it ; no tune, either, to learn any-
thing. I want to attain to something steadfast.
People have created a dubious fame for me, and I
know not how long this hell of poverty and constant
hurried work will last. Oh, if I could but once have
rest !

XVII

To his Brother Michael

[FROM THE FORTRESS],
DEAR BROTHER, Wv l8 - l8 49-

I was inexpressibly glad of your letter, which
I got on July ii. At last you are free, and I can

44 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xvn

vividly imagine how happy you were when you saw
your family again. How impatiently they must
have awaited you ! I seem to see that your life is
beginning to shape itself differently. With what
are you now occupied, and, above all, what are
your means of support ? Have you work, and of
what sort ? Summer is indeed a burden in the town.
You tell me only that you have taken a new house ;
and probably it is much smaller. It is a pity you
couldn't spend the whole summer in the country. I
thank you for the things you sent ; they have relieved
and diverted me. You write, my dear fellow, that I
must not lose heart. Indeed, I am not losing heart
at all; to be sure, life here is very monotonous and
dreary, but what else could it be ? And after all it
isn't invariably so tedious. The time goes by most
irregularly, so to speak now too quickly, now too
slowly. Sometimes I have the feeling that I've
grown accustomed to this sort of life, and that nothing
matters very much. Of course, I try to keep all
alluring thoughts out of my head, but can't always
succeed; my early days, with their fresh impressions,
storm in on my soul, and I live all the past over again.
That is in the natural order of things. The days are
now for the most part bright, and I am somewhat
more cheerful. The rainy days, though, are unbear-
able, and on them the casemate looks terribly grim.
I have occupation, however. I do not let the time go
by for naught ; I have made out the plots of three
tales and two novels ; and am writing a novel now, but
avoid over-working. Such labour, when I do it with
great enjoyment (I have never worked so much
con amove as now), has always agitated me and
affected my nerves. While I was working in freedom
I was always obliged to diversify my labours with
amusements; but here the excitement consequent on

JST. 27] PRISON-LIFE 45

work has to evaporate unaided. My health is good,
except for the haemorrhoids, and the shattered state
of my nerves, which keeps up a constant crescendo.
Now and then I get attacks of breathlessness, my
appetite is as unsatisfactory as ever, I sleep badly, and
have morbid dreams. I sleep about five hours in the
daytime, and wake four times at least every night.
This is the only thing that really bothers me. The
worst of all are the twilight hours. By nine o'clock
it is quite dark here. I often cannot get to sleep
until about one or two in the morning, and the five
hours during which I have to lie in darkness are hard
to bear. They are injuring my health more than
anything else. When our case will be finished I can't
say at all, for I have lost all sense of time, and merely
use a calendar upon which I stroke out, quite passively,
each day as it passes: " That's over !" I haven't read
much since I've been here: two descriptions of travel
in the Holy Land, and the works of Demetrius von
Rostov. The latter interested me very much ; but that
kind of reading is only a drop in the ocean ; any other
sort of books would, I imagine, quite extraordinarily
delight me, and they might be very useful, for thus I
could diversify my own thoughts with those of others,
or at all events capture a different mood.

There you have all the details of my present exist-
ence I have nothing else to tell you. I am glad
that you found your family in the best of health.
Have you yet written of your liberation to Moscow ?
It is a pity that nothing is done here. How I should
like to spend at least one day with you ! It is now
three months since we came to this fortress: what
may not still be in store for us ! Possibly I shall not,
the whole summer through, see so much as one green
leaf. Do you remember how in May they would
take us to walk in the little garden ? The green was

46 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xvn

just beginning then, and I couldn't help thinking of
Reval, where I was with you at about that season, and
of the garden belonging to the Engineering College.
I imagined that you must be making the same com-
parison, so sad was I. And I should like to see a lot
of other people besides. Whom do you see most of
now ? I suppose everybody's in the country. But
our brother Andrey must surely be in town ? Have
you seen Nikolya ? Greet them all from me. Kiss
all your children for me. Greet your wife, and tell
her that I am greatly touched by her thinking of me.
Don't be too anxious on my account. I have but one
wish to be in good health; the tedium is a passing
matter, and cheerfulness depends in the last resort
upon myself. Human beings have an incredible
amount of endurance and will to live; I should never
have expected to find so much in myself; now I know
it from experience. Farewell ! I hope that these
few lines will give you much pleasure. Greet every
one you see whom I have known forget no one. I
have not forgotten anybody. What can the children
be thinking of me, and how do they explain to them-
selves my disappearance ? Farewell. If you can at
all manage it, send me the 0. Z. Then I should at
any rate have something to read. Write me a few
lines it would extraordinarily cheer me.
Till next time !

XVIII

To his Brother Michael

[FROM THE FORTRESS],

August 27, 1849.

I rejoice that I may answer you, dear brother, and
thank you for sending the books. I rejoice also that
you are well, and that the imprisonment had no evil

JET:. 27] ENDURANCE 47

effects upon your constitution. I am most particularly
grateful to you for the 0. Z. But you write far too
little, and my letters are much more comprehensive
than yours. This only by the way you'll do better
next time.

I have nothing definite to tell you about myself.
As yet I know nothing whatever about our case.
My personal life is as monotonous as ever ; but they
have given me permission to walk in the garden, where
there are almost seventeen trees ! This is a great
happiness for me. Moreover, I am given a candle in
the evenings that's my second piece of luck. The
third will be mine if you answer as soon as possible,
and send me the next number of the 0. Z. I am in
the same position as a country subscriber, and await
each number as a great event, like some landed
proprietor dying of boredom in the provinces. Will
you send me some historical works ? That would be
splendid. But best of all would be the Bible (both
Testaments). I need one. Should it prove possible,
send it in a French translation. But if you could
add as well a Slav edition, it would be the height of
bliss.

Of my health I can tell you nothing good. For a
month I have been living almost exclusively on castor
oil. My haemorrhoids have been unusually torment-
ing ; moreover I detect a pain in the breast that I have
never had before. My nervous irritability has notably
increased, especially in the evening hours; at night I
have long, hideous dreams, and latterly I have often
felt as if the ground were rocking under me so, that
my room seems like the cabin of a steamer. From
all this I conclude that my nerves are increasingly
shattered. Whenever formerly I had such nervous
disturbances, I made use of them for writing; in such
a state I could write much more and much better than

48 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xvm

usual; but now I refrain from work that I may not
utterly destroy myself. I took a rest of three weeks,
during which time I wrote not at all; now I have
begun again. But anyhow, all this is nothing: I
can stick it out to the end. Perhaps I shall get quite
right again.

You most tremendously astonish me when you
write that you believe they know nothing of our
adventure in Moscow. I have thought it over, and
come to the conclusion that that's quite impossible.
They simply must know, and I attribute their silence
to another reason. And that was, after all, to be
expected. Oh, it's quite clear. . . .

[The letter goes on to speak of his brother's family.
Dostoevsky also makes some unimportant remarks on
the articles in the 0. Z.]

XIX

To his Brother Michael

[FROM THE FORTRESS],

September 14, 1849.

I have received, dear brother, your letter, the
books (Shakespeare, the Bible, and the 0. Z.} and
the money (ten roubles) : thank you for all. I am glad
that you are well. I go on as before. Always the
same digestive troubles and the haemorrhoids. I
don't know if all this will ever leave me. The
autumn months, which I find so trying, are drawing
near, and with them returns my hypochondria. The
sky is already grey; my health and good heart are
dependent on those little tatters of blue that I can
see from my casemate. But at any rate I'm alive,
and comparatively well. This fact I maintain;
therefore I beg you not to think of my state as

JET. 27] TURGENEV'S COMEDY 49

wholly grievous. My health is at present good. I
had expected worse, and now I see that I have so
much vitality in me that it simply won't allow itself
to be exhausted.

Thank you again for the books. They divert me,
at all events. For almost five months I have been
living exclusively on my own provisions that is to
say, on my own head alone and solely. That machine
is still in working order. But it is unspeakably hard
to think only, everlastingly to think, without any of
those external impressions which renew and nourish
the soul. I live as though under the bell of an air-
pump, from which the air is being drawn. My whole
existence has concentrated itself in my head, and
from my head has drifted into my thoughts, and
the labour of those thoughts grows more arduous
every day. Books are certainly a mere drop in the
ocean, still they do always help me; while my own
work, I think, consumes my remains of strength.
Nevertheless it gives me much happiness.

I have read the books you sent. I am particularly
thankful for the Shakespeare. That was a good idea
of yours. The English novel in the 0. Z. is very
good. On the other hand, Turgenev's comedy is un-
pardonably bad. Why has he always such ill-luck ?
Is he fated to ruin every work of his which runs to
more than one printed sheet ? I simply could not
recognize him in this comedy. Not a trace of
originality; everything in the old, worn-out groove.
He has said it all before, and much better. The last
scene is puerile in its feebleness. Here and there
one thinks to see signs of talent, but only for want
of something better. How splendid is the article on
the Banks and how universally true ! I thank all
who remember me; greet your Emilie Fyodorovna
from me, our brother Andrey too, and kiss the chil-

4

50 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xx

dren, who, I greatly hope, are better. Truly I don't
know, brother, when and how we shall meet again !
Farewell, and please don't forget me. Write to me,
even if it can't be for a fortnight. Till next time !

Thy

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

Pray do not be anxious about me. If you can get
hold of any books, send them.

XX

To his Brother Michael

[FROM THE FORTRESS],

December 22, 1849.

To-day, the 22nd of December, we were all taken
to Semionovsky Square. There the death-sentence
was read to us, we were given the Cross to kiss, the
dagger was broken over our heads, and our funeral
toilet (white shirts) was made. Then three of us
were put standing before the palisades for the execu-
tion of the death-sentence. I was sixth in the row;
we were called up by groups of three, and so I
was in the second group, and had not more than a
minute to live. I thought of you, my brother, and
of yours; in that last moment you alone were in my
mind; then first I learnt how very much I love
you, my beloved brother ! I had time to embrace
Plechtcheyev and Dourov, who stood near me, and
to take my leave of them. Finally, retreat was
sounded, those who were bound to the palisades
were brought back, and it was read to us that His
Imperial Majesty granted us our lives. Then the
final sentences were recited. Palm alone is fully
pardoned. He has been transferred to the line with
the :ame rank.

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

T. 32] AFTER FOUR YEARS 51

XXI

To his Brother Michael

[FROM OMSK],

February 22, 1854.

At last I can talk with you somewhat more ex-
plicitly, and, I believe, in a more reasonable manner.
But before I write another line I must ask you:
Tell me, for God's sake, why you have never written
me a single syllable till now ? Could I have expected
this from you ? Believe me, in my lonely and isolated
state, I sometimes fell into utter despair, for I
believed that you were no longer alive; through
whole nights I would brood upon what was to become
of your children, and I cursed my fate because I
could not help them. But whenever I heard for
certain that you were still alive, I would get furious
(this happened, however, only in times of illness,
from which I have suffered a very great deal), and
begin to reproach you bitterly. Then those states of
mind would pass, and I would excuse you, I would
exert myself to find a justification for you, and grow
tranquil as soon as I discovered any nor did I ever
for a moment utterly lose faith in you: I know that
you love me, and keep me in kindly remembrance.
I wrote you a letter through our official staff; you
simply must have got it ; I expected an answer from
you, and received none. Were you then forbidden
to write to me ? But I know that letters are allowed,
for every one of the political prisoners here gets
several in the year. Even Dourov had some ; and we
often asked the officials how it stood about corre-
spondence, and they declared that people had the
right to send us letters. I think I have guessed the
real reason for your silence. You were too lazy to

52 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

go to the police-office, or if you did go once, you
took the first " No " for an answer given you, prob-
ably, by some functionary or other who knew nothing
rightly about the -matter. Well, you have caused
me a great deal of selfish anxiety, for I thought : If
he won't take any trouble about a letter, he certainly
won't either about more important things ! Write
and answer me as quickly as possible; write, without
awaiting an opportunity, officially, and be as explicit
and detailed as you possibly can. I am like a slice
cut from a loaf nowadays ; I long to grow back again,
but can't. Les absents ont toujours tort. Is that say-
ing to come true of us two ? But be easy in your
mind: I trust you.

It is a week now since I left the prison. I am
sending this letter in the strictest secrecy; say not a
syllable about it to anyone. I shall send you an
official one too, through the staff of the Siberian
Army Corps. Answer the official one instantly, but
this on the first suitable occasion. You must, though,
write very circumstantially in the official letter of
what you have been doing during these four years.
For my part I should like to be sending you volumes.
But as my time scarcely suffices for even this sheet,
I shall tell you only the most important thing.

What is the most important ? What was the most
important to me in the recent past ? When I reflect,
I see that even to tell that, this sheet is far too small.
How can I impart to you what is now in my mind
the things I thought, the things I did, the convictions
I acquired, the conclusions I came to ? I cannot
even attempt the task. It is absolutely impracticable.
I don't like to leave a piece of work half done ; to say
only a part is to say nothing. At any rate, you now
have my detailed report in your hands: read it, and
get from it what you will. It is my duty to tell you

JET. 32] TO SIBERIA ! 53

all, and so I will begin with my recollections. Do
you remember how we parted from one another, my
dear beloved fellow ? You had scarcely left me when
we three, Dourov, Yastrchembsky, and I, were led
out to have the irons put on. Precisely at midnight
on that Christmas Eve (1849), did chains touch me
for the first time. They weigh about ten pounds,
and make walking extraordinarily difficult. Then
we were put into open sledges, each alone with a
gendarme, and so, in four sledges the orderly open-
ing the procession we left Petersburg. I was
heavy-hearted, and the many different impressions
filled me with confused and uncertain sensations.
My heart beat with a peculiar flutter, and that
numbed its pain. Still, the fresh air was reviving
in its effect, and, since it is usual before all new
experiences to be aware of a curious vivacity and
eagerness, so / was at the bottom quite tranquil. I
looked attentively at all the festively-lit houses of
Petersburg, and said good-bye to each. They drove
us past your abode, and at Krayevsky's the windows
were brilliantly lit. You had told me that he was
giving a Christmas party and tree, and that your
children were going to it, with Emilie Fyodorovna;
I did feel dreadfully sad as we passed that house. I
took leave, as it were, of the little ones. I felt so
lonely for them, and even years afterwards I often
thought of them with tears in my eyes. We were
driven beyond Yaroslavl; after three or four stations
we stopped, in the first grey of morning, at Schliissel-
burg, and went into an inn. There we drank tea
with as much avidity as if we had not touched any-
thing for a week. After the eight months' captivity,
sixty versts in a sledge gave us appetites of which,
even to-day, I think with pleasure.
I was in a good temper, Dourov chattered inces-

54 DOST OEVSKY'S LETTERS [xx

santly, and Yastrchembsky expressed unwonted
apprehensions for the future. We all laid ourselves
out to become better acquainted with our orderly.
He was a good old man, very friendly inclined
towards us; a man who has seen a lot of life; he
had travelled all over Europe with despatches. On
the way he showed us many kindnesses. His name
was Kusma Prokofyevitch Prokofyev. Among
other things he let us have a covered sledge, which
was very welcome, for the frost was fearful.

The second day was a holiday; the drivers, who
were changed at the various stations, wore cloaks
of grey German cloth with bright red belts: in the
village-streets there was not a soul to be seen. It
was a splendid winter-day. They drove us through
the remote parts of the Petersburg, Novgorod, and
Yaroslavl Governments. There were quite insignifi-
cant little towns, at great distances from one another.
But as we were passing through on a holiday, there
was always plenty to eat and drink. We drove
drove terribly. We were warmly dressed, it is true,
but we had to sit for ten hours at a time in the
sledges, halting at only five or six stations: it was
almost unendurable. I froze to the marrow, and
could scarcely thaw myself in the warm rooms at the
stations. Strange to say, the journey completely
restored me to health. Near Perm, we had a frost
of forty degrees during some of the nights. I don't
recommend that to you. It was highly disagreeable.
Mournful was the moment when we crossed the
Ural. The horses and sledges sank deep in the
snow. A snow-storm was raging. We got out of
the sledges it was night and waited, standing, till
they were extricated. All about us whirled the
snow-storm. We were standing on the confines of
Europe and Asia; before us lay Siberia and the

T. 32] TOBOLSK 55

mysterious future behind us, our whole past; it
was very melancholy. Tears came to my eyes. On
the way, the peasants would stream out of all the
villages to see us; and although we were fettered,
prices were tripled to us at all the stations. Kusma
Prokofyevitch took half our expenses on himself,
though we tried hard to prevent him; in this way
each of us, during the whole journey, spent only
fifteen roubles.

On January 12 (1850) we came to Tobolsk. After
we had been paraded before the authorities, and
searched, in which proceeding all our money was
taken from us, myself, Dourov, and Yastrchembsky
were taken into one cell; the others, Spyechnyov,
etc., who had arrived before us, were in another
section, and during the whole time we hardly once
saw each other. I should like to tell you more of
our six days' stay in Tobolsk, and of the impressions
it made upon me. But I haven't room here. I will
only tell you that the great compassion and sympathy
which was shown us there, made up to us, like a big
piece of happiness, for all that had gone before. The
prisoners of former days 1 (and still more their wives)
cared for us as if they had been our kith and kin.
Those noble souls, tested by five-and- twenty years
of suffering and self-sacrifice ! We saw them but
seldom, for we were very strictly guarded; still,
they sent us clothes and provisions, they comforted
and encouraged us. I had brought far too few
clothes, and had bitterly repented it, but they sent me
clothes. Finally we left Tobolsk, and reached Omsk
in three days.

While I was in Tobolsk, I gathered information

1 These were the participators in the coup d'etat of Decem-
ber 14, 1825 (" Decembrists "), who had been banished to
Siberia.

56 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

about my future superiors. They told me that the
Commandant was a very decent fellow, but that
the Major, Krivzov, was an uncommon brute, a
petty tyrant, a drunkard, a trickster in short,
the greatest horror that can be imagined. From
the very beginning, he called both Dourov and me
blockheads, and vowed to chastise us bodily at the
first transgression. He had already held his position
for two years, and done the most hideous and unsanc-
tioned things ; two years later, he was court-martialled
for them. So God protected me from him. He
used to come to us mad drunk (I never once saw
him sober), and would seek out some inoffensive
prisoner and flog him on the pretext that he the
prisoner was drunk. Often he came at night and
punished at random say, because such and such an
one was sleeping on his left side instead of his right,
or because he talked or moaned in his sleep in fact,
anything that occurred to his drunken mind. I
should have had to break out in the long run against
such a man as that, and it was he who wrote the
monthly reports of us to Petersburg.

I had made acquaintance with convicts in Tobolsk ;
at Omsk I settled myself down to live four years
in common with them. They are rough, angry,
embittered men. Their hatred for the nobility is
boundless; they regard all of us who belong to it
with hostility and enmity. They would have
devoured us if they only could. Judge then for
yourself in '-hat danger we stood, having to cohabit
with these people for some years, eat with them,
sleep by them, and with no possibility of com-
plaining of the affronts which were constantly put
upon us.

" You nobles have iron beaks, you have torn us
to pieces. When you were masters, you injured the

s,i. 32] PRISON LIFE INDOORS 57

people, and now, when it's evil days with you, you
want to be our brothers."

This theme was developed during four years. A
hundred and fifty foes never wearied of persecuting
us it was their joy, their diversion, their pastime;
our sole shield was our indifference and our moral
superiority, which they were forced to recognize and
respect ; they were also impressed by our never yield-
ing to their will. They were for ever conscious that
we stood above them. They had not the least idea
of what our offence had been. We kept our own
counsel about that, and so we could never come to
understand one another; we had to let the whole
of the vindictiveness, the whole of the hatred, that
they cherish against the nobility, flow over us. We
had a very bad time there. A military prison is
much worse than the ordinary ones. I spent the
whole four years behind dungeon walls, and only
left the prison when I was taken on " hard labour."
The labour was hard, though not always; sometimes
in bad weather, in rain, or in winter during the
unendurable frosts, my strength would forsake me.
Once I had to spend four hours at a piece of extra
work, and in such frost that the quicksilver froze;
it was perhaps forty degrees below zero. One of
my feet was frost-bitten. We all lived together in
one barrack-room. Imagine an old, crazy wooden
building, that should long ago have been broken
up as useless. In the summer it is unbearably
hot, in the winter unbearably cold. All the boards
are rotten. On the ground filth lies an inch thick;
every instant one is in danger of slipping and
coming down. The small windows are so frozen
over that even by day one can hardly read. The ice
on the panes is three inches thick. The ceilings drip,
there are draughts everywhere. We are packed like

58 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

herrings in a barrel. The stove is heated with six
logs of wood, but the room is so cold that the ice
never once thaws; the atmosphere is unbearable
and so through all the winter long. In the same
room, the prisoners wash their linen, and thus make
the place so wet that one scarcely dares to move.
From twilight till morning we are forbidden to leave
the barrack-room; the doors are barricaded; in the
ante-room a great wooden trough for the calls of
nature is placed; this makes one almost unable to
breathe. All the prisoners stink like pigs; they say
that they can't help it, for they must live, and are
but men. We slept upon bare boards ; each man was
allowed one pillow only. We covered ourselves with
short sheepskins, and our feet were outside the cover-
ing all the time. It was thus that we froze night
after night. Fleas, lice, and other vermin by the
bushel. In the winter we got thin sheepskins to wear,
which didn't keep us warm at all, and boots with
short legs; thus equipped, we had to go out in the frost.

To eat we got bread and cabbage-soup: the soup
should, by the regulations, have contained a quarter-
pound of meat per head; but they put in sausage-
meat, and so I never came across a piece of genuine
flesh. On feast-days we got porridge, but with
scarcely any butter. On fast-days cabbage and
nothing else. My stomach went utterly to pieces,
and I suffered tortures from indigestion.

From all this you can see for yourself that one
couldn't live there at all without money; if I had
had none, I should most assuredly have perished; no
one could endure such a life. But every convict
does some sort of work and sells it, thus earning,
every single one of them, a few pence. I often drank
tea and bought myself a piece of meat ; it was my
salvation. It was quite impossible to do without

^T. 32] OMSK 59

smoking, for otherwise the stench would have choked
one. All these things were done behind the backs of
the officials.

I was often in hospital. My nerves were so
shattered that I had some epileptic fits however,
that was not very often. I have rheumatism in my
legs now, too. But except for that, I feel right well.
Add to all these discomforts, the fact that it was
almost impossible to get one's self a book, and that
when I did get one, I had to read it on the sly; that
all around me was incessant malignity, turbulence,
and quarrelling; then perpetual espionage, and the
impossibility of ever being alone for even an instant
and so without variation for four long years: you'll
believe me when I tell you that I was not happy.
And imagine, in addition, the ever-present dread of
drawing down some punishment on myself, the irons,
and the utter oppression of spirits and you have the
picture of my life.

I won't even try to tell you what transformations
were undergone by my soul, my faith, my mind, and
my heart in those four years. It would be a long
story. Still, the eternal concentration, the escape
into myself from bitter reality, did bear its fruit.
I now have many new needs and hopes of which I
never thought in other days. But all this will be
pure enigma for you, and so I'll pass to other things.
I will say only one word: Do not forget me, and do
help me. I need books and money. Send them me,
for Christ's sake.

Omsk is a hateful hole. There is hardly a tree
here. In summer heat and winds that bring sand-
storms; in winter snow-storms. I have scarcely
seen anything of the country round. The place is
dirty, almost exclusively inhabited by military, and
dissolute to the last degree. I mean the common

6o DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

people. If I hadn't discovered some human beings
here, I should have gone utterly to the dogs. Con-
stantine Ivanovitch Ivanov is like a brother to me.
He has done everything that he in any way could for
me. I owe him money. If he ever goes to Peters-
burg, show him some recognition. I owe him twenty-
five roubles. But how can I repay his kindness, his
constant willingness to carry out all my requests, his
attention and care for me, just like a brother's ? And
he is not the only one whom I have to thank in that
way. Brother, there are very many noble natures in
the world.

I have already said that your silence often tortured
me. I thank you for the money you sent. In your
next letter (even if it's " official," for I don't know
yet whether it is possible for me to correspond with
you) in your next, write as fully as you can of all
your affairs, of Emilie Fyodorovna, the children, all
relations and acquaintances; also of those in Moscow
who is alive and who is dead ; and of your business :
tell me with what capital you started it, 1 whether it
is lucrative, whether you are in funds, and finally,
whether you will help me financially, and how much
you will send me a year. But send no money with
the official letter particularly if I don't find a cover-
ing address. For the present, give Michael Petro-
vitch as the consignor of all packets (you understand,
don't you ?). For the time I have some money, but
I have no books. If you can, send me the magazines
for this year, or at any rate the 0. Z. But what
I urgently need are the following; I need (very
necessary) ancient historians (in French translations) ;
modern historians: Guizot, Thierry, Thiers, Ranke,
and so forth; national studies, and the Fathers of the

1 Michael Dostoevsky had at this time a tobacco and
cigarette factory.

JET. 32] SEMIPALATINSK 61

Church. Choose the cheapest and most compact
editions. Send them by return. They have ordered
me to Semipalatinsk, which lies on the edge of the
Kirghiz steppes; I'll let you have the address. Here
is one for the present, anyhow; "Semipalatinsk,
Siberian Regiment of the Line, Seventh Battalion,
Private F. Dostoevsky." That's the official style.
To this one send your letters. But I'll give you
another for the books. For the present, write as
Michael Petrovitch. Remember, above all things, I
need a German dictionary.

I don't know what awaits me at Semipalatinsk. I
don't mind the service much. But what I do care
about is exert yourself for me, spend yourself for
me with somebody or other. Could they not transfer
me in a year or two to the Caucasus ? Then I should
at least be in European Russia ! This is my dearest
desire, grant it me, for Christ's sake ! Brother, do
not forget me ! I write and scold you and dispose of
your very property ! But my faith in you is not yet
extinguished. You are my brother, and you used to
love me. I need money. I must have something to
live on, brother. These years shall not have been in
vain. I want money and books. What you spend
on me will not be lost. If you give me help, you
won't be robbing your children. If I live, I'll repay
you with interest oh, a thousandfold. In six years,
perhaps even sooner, I shall surely get permission to
print my books. It may indeed be quite otherwise,
but I don't write recklessly now. You shall hear of
me again.

We shall see one another some day, brother. I
believe in that as in the multiplication-table. To my
soul, all is clear. I see my whole future, and all that
I shall accomplish, plainly before me. I am content
with my life. I fear only men and tyranny. How

62 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

easily might I come across a superior officer who did
not like me (there are such folk !), who would torment
me incessantly and destroy me with the rigours of
service for I am very frail and of course in no state
to bear the full burden of a soldier's life. People try
to console me: " They're quite simple sort of fellows
there." But I dread simple men more than complex
ones. For that matter, men everywhere are just
men. Even among the robber-murderers in the
prison, I came to know some men in those four
years. Believe me, there were among them deep,
strong, beautiful natures, and it often gave me
great joy to find gold under a rough exterior. And
not in a single case, or even two, but in several cases.
Some inspired respect; others were downright fine.
I taught the Russian language and reading to a
young Circassian he had been transported to Siberia
for robbery with murder. How grateful he was to
me ! Another convict wept when I said good-bye to
him. Certainly I had often given him money, but it
was so little, and his gratitude so boundless. My
character, though, was deteriorating; in my relations
with others I was ill-tempered and impatient. They
accounted for it by my mental condition, and bore all
without grumbling. Apropos: what a number of
national types and characters I became familiar with
in the prison ! I lived into their lives, and so I
believe I know them really well. Many tramps' and
thieves' careers were laid bare to me, and, above all,
the whole wretched existence of the common people.
Decidedly I have not spent my time there in vain. I
have learnt to know the Russian people as only a few
know them. I am a little vain of it. I hope that
such vanity is pa r donable.

Brother ! Be sure to tell me of all the most im-
portant events in your life. Send the official letter

JJT. 32] BOOKS AND MONEY 63

to Semipalatinsk, and the unofficial whither you soon
shall know. Tell me of all our acquaintances in Peters-
burg, of literature (as many details as possible), and
finally of our folks in Moscow. How is our brother
Kolya ? What (and this is much more important) is
sister Sacha doing ? Is Uncle still alive ? What is
brother Andrey about ? I am writing to our aunt
through sister Vera. For God's sake, keep this letter a
dead secret, and burn it ; it might compromise various
people. Don't forget, dear friend, to send me books.
Above all things histories and national studies, the
0. Z., the Fathers of the Church, and church-
histories. Don't send all the books at once, though
as soon after one another as possible. I am dispens-
ing your money for you as if it were my own; but
only because your present situation is unknown to
me. Write fully about your affairs, so that I may
have some idea of them. But mark this, brother:
books are my life, my food, my future ! For God's
sake, don't abandon me. I pray you ! Try to get per-
mission to send me the books quite openly. But be
cautious. If it can be done openly, send them openly.
But if it can't, then send them through brother
Constantine Ivanovitch, to his address. I shall get
them. Constantine Ivanovitch, by-the-bye, is going
this very year to Petersburg; he'll tell you every-
thing. What a family he has ! And what a wife !
She is a young girl, the daughter of the Decembrist
Annenkov. Such a heart, such a disposition and to
think of what they've all been through ! I shall set
myself, when I go to Semipalatinsk in a week, to
find a new covering address. I am not quite strong
yet, so must remain here a while. (Send me the
Koran, and Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason "), and
if you have the chance of sending anything not
officially, then be sure to send Hegel but particularly

64 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxi

Hegel's " History of Philosophy." Upon that de-
pends my whole future. For God's sake, exert your-
self for me to get me transferred to the Caucasus;
try to find out from well-informed people whether I
shall be permitted to print my works, and in what
way I should seek this sanction. I intend to try for
permission in two or three years. I beg you to sus-
tain me so long. Without money I shall be destroyed
by military kfe. So please !

Perhaps in the beginning the other relatives would
support me too ? In that case they could hand the
money to you, and you would send it to me. In my
letters to Aunt and to Vera, though, I never ask for
money. They can guess themselves that I want it,
if they think about me at all.

Filippov, before he left for Sebastopol, gave me
twenty-five roubles. He left them with the Com-
mandant, Nabokov, and I knew nothing about it
beforehand. He thought that I should have no
money. A kind soul ! All our lot are doing not so
badly in banishment. Toll has done his time, and
now lives quite tranquilly in Tomsk. Yastr-
chembsky is in Tara; his time is drawing to an end.
Spyechnyov is in the Irkutsk Government; he has
won general liking and respect there. That man's is a
curious destiny ! Wherever, and in whatever circum-
stances, he may appear, even the most inaccessible
people show him honour and respect. Petrachevsky
is now and then not in his right mind; Monbelli and
Loov are well; poor Grigoryev has gone clean out of
his senses and is in hospital. And how goes it with
you ? Do you still see a great deal of Mme.
Plestcheiev ? What is her son doing ? From
prisoners who passed through here, I heard that he is
alive and in the fortress at Orsk, and that Golovinsky
has long been in the Caucasus. How goes your

JET. 32] A KIND OF LIBERTY 65

literature, and your interest in literature ? Are you
writing anything ? What is Krayevsky about, and
what are your relations with him ? I don't care for
Ostrovsky; I have read nothing by Pissemsky;
Drushinin I loathe. I was enchanted with Eugenie
Tur. I like Krestovsky too.

I should like to have written much more; but so
much time has gone by that even this letter was
somewhat difficult to write. But it really cannot be
that our relation is altered in any respect. Kiss your
children. Can they remember Uncle Fedya at all ?
Greet all acquaintances but keep this letter a dead
secret. Farewell, farewell, dear fellow ! You shall
hear from me again, and perhaps even see me. Yes
we shall most certainly see one another again ! Fare-
well. Read attentively all that I write to you.
Write to me as oftert-as possible (even if officially).
I embrace you and all yours more times than I can
count.

Thy

DOSTOEVSKY.

P.S. Have you received my children's story, 1 that
I wrote in the fortress ? If it is in your hands, don't
do anything with it, and show it to no one. Who is
Tschernov, that wrote a " Double " in 1850 ?
Till next time !

Thy
DOSTOEVSKY.

1 He means " The Little Hero." The story did not appear
till 1857 (in the O. Z., under the pseudonym " M y.").

66 DOSTOEVSKI'S LETTERS [xxn

XXII

To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin 1

,**

OMSK,
Beginning of March, 1854.

At last I am writing to you, my kind N. D., after
leaving my former place of abode. When I last
wrote, I was sick in body and soul. I was consumed
with longings, and I daresay my letter was quite
senseless. That long, colourless, physically and
morally difficult life had stifled me. It is always
grievous to me to write letters at such times; and I
regard it as cowardice to force one's sorrow on others,
even when they are very fond of one. I send you
this letter indirectly, and I am glad to be able to
speak with you quite unconstrainedly at last; all
the more because 1 have been transferred to Semi-
palatinsk to the seventh battalion, and therefore
don't at all know in what way I may be able to corre-
spond with you in future.

[Dostoevsky further discusses the question of how
he may most safely correspond with his brother and
with Mme. Fonvisin.]

With what delight I read your letter, dearest
N. D. You write quite admirable letters, or, more
precisely, your letters flow easily and naturally from
your good kind heart. There are reserved and em-
bittered natures, which only in very rare moments
are expansive. I know such people. They are not
necessarily bad people quite the contrary, indeed.

1 Wife of the Decembrist M. A. Fonvisin. Dostoevsky had
met her in Tobolsk in 1850. During his captivity, when he
himself was not allowed to correspond with his brother, she
was his only medium of communication with the outside
world,

JJT. 32] DOSTOEVSKY'S CREED 67

I don't know why, but I guess from your letter that
you returned home in bad spirits. I understand it ; I
have sometimes thought that if ever I return home, I
shall get more grief than joy from my impressions
there. I have not lived your life, and much in it is
unknown to me, and indeed, no one can really know
exactly his fellow-mortal's life ; still, human feeling is
common to us all, and it seems to me that everyone
who has been banished must live all his past grief
over again in consciousness and memory, on his return
home. It is like a balance, by which one can test the
true gravity of what one has endured, gone through,
and lost. God grant you a long life ! I have heard
from many people that you are very religious. But
not because you are religious, but because I myself
have learnt it and gone through it, I want to say to
you that in such moments, one does, " like dry grass,"
thirst after faith, and that one finds it in the end,
solely and simply because one sees the truth more
clearly when one is unhappy. I want to say to you,
about myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of
unfaith and scepticism, and probably (indeed I know
it) shall remain so to the end of my life. How dread-
fully has it tormented me (and torments me even
now) this longing for faith, which is all the stronger
for the proofs I have against it. And yet God gives
me sometimes moments of perfect peace; in such
moments I love and believe that I am loved; in such
moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all
is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely
simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing
lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational,
more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I
say to myself with jealous love that not only is there
no one else like Him, but that there could be no one.
I would even say more : If anyone could prove to me

68 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxn

that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really
did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ
and not with truth.

I would rather not say anything more about it.
And yet I don't know why certain topics may never
be touched on in society, and why, if anyone does
introduce them, it makes the others uncomfortable.
Still, enough of it. I heard that you were desirous
of travelling somewhere in the South. God grant
that you may succeed in obtaining permission to do
so. But will you please tell me when we shall be
quite free, or at any rate as free as other people ? Per-
haps only when we no longer need freedom ? For my
part, I want all or nothing. In my soldier's uniform
I am the same prisoner as before. I rejoice greatly
that I find there is patience in my soul for quite a
long time yet, that I desire no earthly possessions,
and need nothing but books, the possibility of writing,
and of being daily for a few hours alone. The last
troubles me most. For almost five years I have
been constantly under surveillance, or with several
other people, and not one hour alone with myself.
To be alone is a natural need, like eating and drink-
ing ; for in that kind of concentrated communism one
becomes a whole-hearted enemy of mankind. The
constant companionship of others works like poison
or plague; and from that unendurable martyrdom I
most suffered in the last four years. There were
moments in which I hated every man, whether good
or evil, and regarded him as a thief who, unpunished,
was robbing me of life. The most unbearable part is
when one grows unjust, malignant, and evil, is aware
of it, even reproves one's-self, and yet has not the
power to control one's-self. I have experienced that.
I am convinced that God will keep you from it. I

MT. 32] DREADS AND WISHES 69

believe that you, as a woman, have more power to
forgive and to endure.

Do write me a line, N. D. I am now going to a
veritable desert, to Asia, and there, in Semipalatinsk,
it seems to me that all my past, all memories and im-
pressions, will leave me; for the last human beings
whom I still had to love, and who were like a shadow
of my past, will now have to desert me. I get so dread-
fully quickly used to people, and grow into my en-
vironment so tenaciously, that I never can tear myself
away, when the time comes, without great pain. I
wish for_yow, N. D., that you may live as happily and
as long as possible ! If we ever meet again, we shall
learn to know one another afresh, and each of us may
perhaps still have many happy days. I live in con-
stant expectancy; I am always rather ill now, and I
feel that soon, very soon, something decisive must
happen, that I am nearing the crucial moment of my
whole life, am ripe for anything that may come and
that perhaps something tranquil and bright, perhaps
something menacing, but in any case something in-
evitable, closely impends. Otherwise my whole life
would be a failure. Perhaps it has all been but a
sick delirium ! Farewell, N. D., or rather au revoir;
we'll hope, won't we ? that we shall see one another
again !

Your
D.

P.S. For goodness' sake forgive this untidy, greasy
letter ! But, on my sacred honour, I can't write with-
out erasures. Don't be cross with me.

70 DOSTOIEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxm

XXIII

To Mme. Maria Dmitryevna Issayev 1

FROM SEMIPALATINSK TO KUSNEZK

[IN THE TOMSK GOVERNMENT],

June 4, 1855.

A thousand thanks for your dear letter on the
journey, my dear and unforgettable friend Maria
Dmitryevna. I hope that you and Alexander Ivano-
vitch 2 will allow me to call you both friends. We cer-
tainly were friends here, and I trust we shall remain
so. Is mere separation to alter us ? I believe not;
for the parting from you, my dear friends, lies so
heavily upon me that by that alone I can judge how
very much I cling to you. Just imagine : this is the
second letter I have written to you. I had an answer
to your dear cordial letter ready for the earlier post,
dear Maria Dmitryevna, but I never sent it. Alex-
ander Yegorovitch, 3 who was to have taken it to the
post, quite suddenly left for Smyev last Saturday,
and I never heard of his departure till Sunday. His
servant simultaneously disappeared for two days, and
the letter remained in my pocket. Hard luck ! I
am now writing to you again, but know not if this
letter will get off either. Alexander Yegorovitch is
not back yet. But they have sent a special messenger
after him.

Here we hourly expect the Governor-General; he
may perhaps be already arrived. It is said that he
will spend about five days here. But enough of
that. How did you arrive at Kusnezk ? I hope
and pray that nothing happened to you on the

1 Dostoavsky's future wife. Compare the reminiscences of
Baron Vrangel, in the Appendix.
a The lady's husband.
3 Baron Vrangel.

DOSTOEVSKY'S MOTHEK.

JET. 33] A WOMAN'S INFLUENCE 71

way. You write that you are depressed and even ill.
So I am most anxious about you. The mere move
caused you such trouble and such unavoidable dis-
comforts, and now there's this illness added ! How
are you to bear it all ? I can think of nothing but
you. You know how apprehensive. I am, so you can
picture my anxiety. My God, how little you you,
who might be an ornament to any society deserve
this fate with all its petty cares and contrarieties !
Accursed destiny ! I await your letter with im-
patience. If only it would come by this post ! I
went several times to find out if it had; but Alex-
ander Yegorovitch is not back yet. You ask me how
I pass the time, and how I arrange my day without
you. For a fortnight I have not known what to do
with myself, so sad am I. If you only knew how
orphaned I now feel ! It is just like the time when
they arrested me in 1849, put me in prison, and tore
me from all that I loved and prized. So very much
had I grown to you. I never looked upon our inter-
course as an ordinary acquaintanceship, and now,
when I no longer have you near me, I begin to under-
stand many things. I have lived for five years
entirely without human relations quite alone, with-
out a creature to whom I could open my heart. But
you two treated me like a brother. I remember that
from the very first, I felt at home in your house.
Alexander Ivanovitch could not have been kinder to
his own brother than he was to me. With my un-
endurable character, I must have caused you much
vexation, and yet you both loved me. I recognize it
and feel it, for indeed I am not quite heartless. You
are a wonderful woman; you have a heart of rare
child-like kindliness, and you were like a sister to me.
The mere fact that a woman should treat me in so
friendly a way was a great event in my life. For

72 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxm

even the best man is often, if I may say so, a block.
Woman's heart, woman's compassion, woman's sym-
pathy, the endless kindness of which we have no
clear perception, and which, in our obtuseness, we
often do not even notice these are irreplaceable.
All that I found in you; even apart from my many
failings, a sister could not have been kinder and
more tactful to me than you were. If we did go
through some violent upheavals, it was always
because I was ungrateful, and you were ill, ex-
acerbated, and wounded; you were wounded be-
cause the disgusting society-folk neither prized nor
understood you, and anyone with your energy must
revolt against all injustice, and that revolt is noble
and dignified. These are the essential features of
your character; suffering and circumstances have
naturally distorted much in you but, by God, with
what usurer's interest was any such failing always
redeemed ! And since I was not stupid all the time,
I saw and treasured it. In one word, I had to love
your house as my very own home I could not do
otherwise. I shall never forget you both, and shall
be ever grateful to you. For I am convinced that
neither of you has the least idea of all you did for
me, and how very necessary to me were just such
people as you. If I had not had you, I should most
likely have turned into a block of wood; but now I
am a human being again. But enough; it is not to
be expressed, least of all in a letter. I curse. this
letter, because it reminds me of our parting ; every-
thing reminds me of that. In the twilight, in those
hours when I used to go to you, such grief over-
whelms me that I could weep if I were at all prone
to do so; and I know you would not laugh at my
tears. Once for all, my heart is so constituted that
everything it loves and treasures grows deeply rooted

JBT. 33] THE PARTING 73

in it, and when uptorn, causes wounds and suffering.
I live quite solitary here now, and have no idea what
to do with myself; everything is spoilt for me. A
frightful blank ! I have only Alexander Yegorovitch
now ; but in his company I always feel sad, for always
I involuntarily compare myself with him, and you
can easily imagine what that results in. In any case,
he's away just at present. During his absence I have
been twice in the Kasakov Gardens, and I did feel so
sad ! When I think of last summer, when you, poor
dear, had only one wish, to get out into the country
so that you might have a breath of fresh air great
grief comes over me, and I feel frightfully sorry for
you. Do you remember how we you, Alexander
Ivanovitch, I, and Elena were once in the Kasakov
Gardens ? How vivid was the sense of it, when I went
there again ! In the Gardens nothing is changed, and
the seat on which we sat is still standing there. . . .
And I felt so sad. You write suggesting that I
sliould live with Vrangel; but I don't want to do
that, for I have several weighty reasons against it.
First, the question of money. If I lived with him, I
should of course have to spend much more money
on rent, servants, and food, for I wouldn't live at his
expense. Second : my character. Third : his character.
Fourth: I have noticed that he is much visited by all
sorts of people. I don't mean to shut myself off from
society, but I can't stand strangers. Finally: I love
solitude, I am used to it, and use is second nature.
Enough. I have really told you nothing yet. After I
had accompanied you to the forest and taken leave of
you under a pine-tree (which I've marked), I returned
arm-in-arm with Vrangel (who was leading his horse
by the bridle) to the Pechechonov's hospitable abode.
It was there that I first realized my desolate state.
At first I could see your travelling-carriage in the

74 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxm

distance, then only hear it, and at last it was quite
gone. We got into the droschky, and sat talking of
you both and of how you would bear the journey;
and it was then that Vrangel told me something that
greatly rejoiced me. On the day of your departure,
early in the morning, it appears that Pyotr Michail-
ovitch suggested that they should spend the whole
evening together somewhere. Vrangel refused the
offer, and when Pyotr Michailovitch asked him why,
he answered: " Because I must see the Issayevs off."
There were some other people there. Pyotr Michail-
ovitch asked at once: "Then you know that pair
very well ?" Vrangel answered somewhat stiffly
that he had only known you for a short time, but
thought your house one of the pleasantest possible,
and that its mistress that is, you was a woman such
as he had seen none to equal since he had been in
Petersburg, and probably never would see again; a
woman " such as you have never seen at all," he
added, " and I consider her acquaintance the greatest
honour."

This story of Vrangel's gave me extraordinary joy.
I think the opinion of a man like that, who knows
ladies in the best society (for in such society he was
born), is quite decisive. Talking of similar subjects,
and continually abusing the Pechechonovs, we
reached the town about sunrise. And the driver, to
whom we had given no orders, took us straight to my
house. In this way the proposed tea fell through, of
which I was very glad, for I was longing to be alone.
I stayed at home a good while, walking up and down
in my room, looking at the sunrise, and going over
the whole past year, which had flown by so rapidly for
me; all the memories came uj), and I grew very sad,
thinking of my future. From that day I wander
about aimlessly, like the Wandering Jew. I go

ST. 33] A BAD OLD WOMAN 75

scarcely anywhere. Everything seems tiresome;
I've been once to Grischin's, who is going to Kopal,
and is now breaking up house (he's going to Vyerny
too); to Mader's, who says I've grown thin; to
Schulitchka's (I took him my birthday greetings),
where I met the Pechechonovs and talked with them ;
I visit Byelichov now and then; and finally, go to
camp for drill. I am frequently ill. How impatiently
I awaited the return of the Tartar guides ! Every
minute I was running to Ordynsky's to find out
something about it, and so was Silota. I have also
been once to your house, brought away the ivy (it's
here now), and saw the orphaned Surka, who ran to
meet me, crazy with joy, but will not be induced to
leave the house. At last the guides came back.
Your letter, for which I thank you infinitely, was a
great joy to me. I asked the Tartars many a ques-
tion. They told me a lot, and praised you above all
things (everyone praises you, Maria Dmitryevna !).
I gave them a little money. The next day I met
Koptyov at Vrangel's. He told me things too, but
I couldn't ask him about what interested me most of
all, namely, how your travelling-expenses had worked
out. The question was too " ticklish." To this
day I can't imagine how you ever got over the
journey ! How dear your letter is, Maria Dmitryevna !
I expected just such an one. It is so full of detail;
write me letters like that always. I can see your
grandmother as if she were before my eyes. The
bad old woman ! How she adds to your troubles
and embitters your life. May she stay with her lap-
dog to the end of her days ! I hope that Alexander
Ivanovitch will squeeze that last \vi\l and testament
out of her, without ever letting her enter the house in
person. She must be made to see that it's the best
arrangement even for herself; otherwise, she must

76 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxm

undertake in writing to die within three months (and
for each month pay 1,000 roubles) ; on that condition
alone should you receive her. Shall you really, with
your feeble health, be obliged to attend to all the
lap-dogs ? Such old women are truly unbearable !
I read your letter to Vrangel only parts of it, of
course. I could not help going once to see Elena:
the poor thing is so lonely. I am so immensely sorry
that you were ill on the way ! When shall I get a
letter from you ? I am so anxious ! How were you
on arrival ? I shake Alexander Ivanovitch mightily
by the hand, and kiss him. I hope he'll soon write
to me. I embrace him warmly as friend and brother,
and wish him better health than he had here. And
does he mean to be as entirely indiscriminate about
people in Kusnezk as he was in Semipalatinsk ? Are
all those fellows really worth associating with, eating
and drinking with, and, afterwards, taking all con-
ceivable basenesses from ? In that way one injures
one's-self with eyes wide open. What a loathsome
lot they are, and above all, what a dirty lot ! When
one was in their company, one often felt one's soul to
be as soiled as if one were in a low dram-shop. I hope
Alexander Ivanovitch won't be angry with me for
my wishes and my advice. Farewell, unforgettable
Maria Dmitryevna farewell ! We shall meet again,
shan't we ? Write to me very often and very much,
write to me about Kusnezk, about the new people
you know, and as much as possible about yourself.
Kiss Pasha from me. Farewell, farewell oh, when
shall we see one another again ?

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

JET. 34] SYMPATHY 77

XXIV

To Mme. Praskovya Yegor ovna Annenkov^

SEMIPALATINSK,

October 18, 1855.

PRASKOVYA YEGOROVNA !

I wanted to write to you long ago, and have
waited so long for a suitable opportunity that I will
not delay now that one presents itself. The bearer
of this letter, Alexey Ivanovitch Bachirev, is a very
modest and very excellent young man, a simple and
honest soul. I have known him now for a year and
a half, and am sure that I am not mistaken in his
qualities.

I shall ever remember the full, cordial sympathy
which you and your whole excellent family showed
to me and my companions in misfortune on my
arrival in Siberia. I think of that sympathy with a
quite peculiar sense of solace, and shall never, I think,
forget it. He who has learnt by his own experience
what " hostile destiny " means, and in certain
moments has savoured the full bitterness of such a
lot, knows also how sweet it then is to meet, quite
unexpectedly, with brotherly compassion.

It was thus that you showed yourselves to me,
and I often recall my meeting with you, when you
came to Omsk and I was still in the prison.

Since my arrival at Semipalatinsk, I have heard
almost nothing of Constantine Ivanovitch, and the
much-honoured Olga Ivanovna; 2 my intercourse with
Olga Ivanovna will for ever be one of the pleasantest
memories of my life. Eighteen months ago, when

1 Wife of the well-known Decembrist Annenkov.

a These were the son-in-law and the daughter of Mine.
Annenkov, Constantine Ivanovitch Ivanov, and Olga
Ivanovna.

78 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxiv

Dourov and I left the prison, we spent nearly a month
in her house.

You can well imagine the effect that such inter-
course must have had on a man who for four years,
adapting myself, as I did, to my fellow-prisoners, had
lived like a slice cut from a loaf, or a person buried
underground. Olga Ivanovna held out her hand to
me like a sister, and the memory of that beautiful,
pure, proud, and noble nature will be clear and radiant
all my life long. May God shower much happiness
on her, happiness for herself and for those who are
dear to her ! I should like to hear something of her.
I believe that such beautiful natures as hers must
always be happy; only the evil are unhappy. I be-
lieve that happiness lies in a clear conception of life
and in goodness of heart, not in external circumstances.
Is it not so ? I am sure that you will understand me
rightly, and that is why I write thus to you.

My life goes by somehow or other; but I may con-
fide to you that I have great hopes. . . . My hopes
are based on certain facts; various people are taking
the greatest trouble for me in Petersburg, and I shall
perhaps hear something in a few months. You will
probably have heard that Dourov has been released
from military service on account of his health, and
has now entered the Civil Service. He is in Omsk.
Perhaps you have news of him. We don't correspond,
though we keep one another in good remembrance.

Baron Vrangel, whom you know, sends you
greeting. I am friendly with him. His is a fine,
fresh nature; God grant it may always so remain.

My profound, entire, and sincere respects to your
husband. I wish you perfect happiness. Do you
happen to have heard anything from a certain oracle, 1

1 The allusion is to a spiritualistic stance, at which Mme.
Ivanovna heard an astonishing prophecy with regard to a
question of inheritance.

s.1. 34] AN OLD FRIEND 79

who was consulted during my stay at Omsk ? I
remember still what a deep impression it made upon
Olga Ivanovna.

Farewell, most honoured Praskovya Yegorovna.
I am sure that we shall meet again, and perhaps
quite soon. It is my sincere wish. I think with
veneration of you and all yours.

I remain, in deepest reverence,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

I had a few lines from Constantine Ivanovitch this
summer.

Though I much esteem the bearer of this letter,
A. I. Bachirev, I don't confide all things to him.

XXV

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov 1

SEMIPALATINSK,

January 18, 1856.

I meant to answer your kind letter long ago, my
dear Apollon Nikolayevitch. As I read it, there came
to me a breath of the past. I thank you a thousand
times for not having forgotten me. I don't know
why, but I always had the feeling that you wouldn't
forget me; perhaps because I can't forget you. You
write that much has altered in this interval, and that
we've both been through many transformations. For
myself I can answer. I could tell you many interest-
ing things about myself. But please don't be angry
with me for writing now in all haste, so that my letter
must be broken, and even perhaps confused. I am
feeling just what you felt, as you wrote the im-
possibility of expressing one's-self fully after so many
1 The well-known author (1821-97).

8o DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxv

years, even though one should write fifty pages. One
must have the word of mouth and the personal con-
tact, so that one can read the countenance and hear
the heart speak in the tone. One word, spoken
frankly, two-by-two, face speaking to face, means
more than dozens of sheets of writing. I thank you
most particularly for all you told me about yourself.

[Here follow some remarks about people with whom
Maikov was connected.]

Perhaps you have heard something of me from my
brother. In my hours of leisure I am putting down
a good many notes of my prison-memories. 1 There
are but few personal details in these sketches, though ;
when I've finished them, and if a really good oppor-
tunity offers, I'll send you a manuscript copy as a
keepsake.

[Here follows a cordial recommendation of the
bearer of this letter, Baron A. Vrangel.j

You write that you have thought of me warmly, and
always asked yourself, " To what end, to what end ?"
And I too have thought warmly of you, but your
question "To what end?" I shall answer not at all;
for whatever I might say must necessarily be waste of
words. You write that you have done a great deal,
thought a great deal, got a great deal that is new from
life. It could not have been otherwise, and I'm sure
that we should now agree in our views. For I too
have thought a great deal and done a great deal ; such
unusual circumstances and influences have combined
in my experience that I have had to undergo, think,
and weigh far too much, more than my strength was
equal to. As you know me very well, you'll easily
believe that in all things I was guided by those con-
1 " The House of the Dead," published 1861-62.

J2T. 34] RUSSIA'S TRUE MISSION 81

siderations which seemed to me to be just and upright,
that I never played the hypocrite, and that when I
took up any particular matter, I put my whole soul
into it. Don't think, though, that I mean by these
words to refer to the circumstances which have
brought me here. I am speaking now of more recent
experiences; nor would it be relevant to allude to
those gone-by occurrences they were nothing but an
episode, after all. One's views alter; one's heart
remains the same. I have read your letter through,
but failed to understand the most essential part of it.
I mean about patriotism, the Russian Idea, the sense
of duty, national honour, and all those things of
which you speak with such enthusiasm. But, my
friend ! were you ever any different ? For / was
always inspired by those very emotions and con-
victions. Russia, Duty, Honour ? Why, I always
was Russian through and through, and I say it most
decidedly. What then is " new " about the move-
ment which is becoming perceptible around you, and
of which you write as of a novel tendency ? I tell you
quite frankly that I don't understand you. I have
read your poem, and thought it exquisite; I wholly
share your patriotic emotion, your efforts towards the
moral emancipation of the Slavs. It is there that
Russia's mission lies our noble, mighty Russia, our
holy mother. How beautiful are the concluding lines
of your " Council at Clermont " ! Whence do you
draw the eloquence with which you have so magnifi-
cently expressed those powerful thoughts? Yes
indeed I do share your idea that in Russia Europe
will find her final account; it is Russia's true mission.
That was always clear to me. You write that our
society " seems to be awakened from its apathy." Yet
you know that our society never does make manifesta-
tions; and who shall conclude therefrom that it is

6

82 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxv

nerveless ? Once an idea is really made clearly mani-
fest, and society called upon to examine it society
has always grasped it at once. And so it is now : the
Idea has been grandly, most nationally and chival-
rously (one must declare that] made manifest and
behold, that very political ideal which Peter the Great
fashioned for us has at once been universally accepted.
Perhaps you were and are offended by the fact that
in those strata of society where people consciously
think, feel, and investigate, French ideas are gaining
ground ? Undoubtedly there is a tinge of exclusiveness
in that; still it is in the nature of all exclusiveness
instantly to produce its own antithesis. You will
admit yourself that all reasonable, thinking men and
that means, those who set the tone in everything
have ever regarded French ideas from a purely
scientific standpoint, and that even they who most
leaned towards exclusiveness, remained unchangingly
Russian throughout. What do you see new in that ?
I assure you that /, for example, feel so near to all
Russians that even the convicts never alarmed me;
they were Russian, they were my brothers in misfor-
tune; and I often had the joy of discovering magna-
nimity in the soul of a robber and murderer; but it
was only because I am Russian myself that I could
thus understand him. I have to thank my ill-luck
for many practical experiences, which probably have
had a great influence upon me; but I learnt at the
same time that in my very inmost being I always
have been Russian. One may be mistaken in an
idea, but one can't mistake one's heart, and lose one's
conscience by reason of the mental error by which
I mean, one can't act against one's convictions.

But why am I writing all this to you ? I know
well that these lines don't in the least express what I
mean; then why do I go on writing ? I'll tell you,

XT. 34] BEGINNING WORK AGAIN 83

instead, some things about myself. In prison I read
only very little, for I couldn't get any of the books I
wanted, though often books of a sort came into my
hands. Since I've been here in Semipalatinsk, I've
read rather more ; but still I have no books, not even
necessary ones, at hand, and time is going by. I
couldn't at all tell you how very much I suffered
from not being allowed to write in prison. My
mental labour comes only thus " to the boil." Some
things were all right; I felt it. I planned out in that
way a great novel, which I consider will be my de-
finitive work. I was dreadfully afraid that the first
passion for my work would have gone cold when the
years had passed, and the hour of realization struck
at last that passion without which one cannot write.
But I was mistaken : the figure which I had conceived,
and which is the basis of the whole book, needed some
years for its development, and I am convinced that I
should have ruined all if I had then, unready as I
was, begun the work in the first flush of zeal. But
even when I left the prison, I did not set to, though
all was quite ready in my mind. I simply could not
write. A circumstance, a contingency, which long
had delayed to enter my life and then at last did
invade it, wholly carried me away, intoxicated me.
I was happy, I could not work. Later I was to know
grief and sadness. I lost something which was my
all. Hundreds of versts now divide us. 1 I won't
speak more precisely, but will perhaps explain all at
some other time; now I cannot. . . . However, I
have not been wholly idle. I have done some work;
but the carrying-out of my chef d'ceuvre I have post-
poned. For that I need to be in a more tranquil
mood. I began for fun to write a comedy; I invented
so many droll characters and episodes, and liked my

1 The reference is to Mme. Issayev, later Dostoevsky's wife.

84 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxv

hero so much, that I abandoned the form of comedy
(although I quite enjoyed it) solely that I might
prolong as far as possible the pursuit of this new
hero's experiences, and my own laughter at him. He
is like myself in many respects. In a word, I am
writing a comic novel; 1 hitherto I have been de-
scribing only separate adventures, but now I've had
enough of that, and am unifying the whole.

There's my full report of work; I can't help writing
it all to you; when I talk with you, my unforget-
table friend, I keep thinking of our past. Indeed,
I was so often happy in your company how could I
forget you ? You write of literature for a year I've
hardly read anything. I'll give you my impressions,
such as they are: Turgenev pleases me best; it is
only a pity that he's so often unequal to his great
talent. L. T. 2 I like very well, but I have an idea
that he won't do much (perhaps I'm mistaken, how-
ever). Ostrovsky I don't know at all; I've read
nothing of his, though I've seen many extracts from
his works in the articles about him. He may know
a certain section of Russian society very accurately,
but I don't believe he's an artist. Moreover he
seems to me a writer utterly without ideals. Please
try to persuade me to the contrary; for goodness'
sake, send me those works of his which you consider
the best, that I may not be acquainted only with the
criticisms of him. Of Pissemsky I know only the
" Swaggerer " and the " Rich Suitor " nothing else.
I like him very much. He is sane, good-humoured,
and even naive; he can tell a story like a master.
One thing is a pity: he writes too fast. He writes
much too fast, and much too much. A man should
have more ambition, more respect for his talent and
his craft, and more love for art. When one's young,

1 " Uncle's Dream." 3 Leo Tolstoy.

*T. 34] MADAME DE SEVIGN6 85

ideas come crowding incredibly into one's head; but
one should not capture each and all of them as it flies,
and rush to give it forth. One should rather await
the synthesis, and think more; wait till the many
single details which make up an idea have gathered
themselves into a nucleus, into a large, imposing
picture; then, and not till then, should one write
them down. The colossal figures, created by the
colossal writers, have often grown out of long, stub-
born labour. But the attempts and sketches that
go to the picture should not be displayed at all.
I don't know if you'll understand me ! But, as far
as Pissemsky goes, I think that he doesn't hold his
pen sufficiently in check. Our literary ladies write
like other literary ladies that is, cleverly, neatly,
and with much fluency of expression. Tell me,
please, why a woman-writer is almost never a
serious artist ? Even the undoubtedly colossal
artist, George Sand, often spoilt herself by her
purely feminine traits. . . . During the whole time
there, I came across many of your short poems in
the newspapers. ... 1 liked them greatly. Be
strong and labour. I'll tell you in confidence, in
strict confidence: Tyutchev 1 is very remarkable,
but . . . etcetera. What Tyutchev is it, by-the-
bye is it our one ? Many of his poems are excellent.
Farewell, my dear friend. Excuse the incoherence
of this letter. One never can say anything properly
in a letter. On that account alone I can't bear
Mme. de Sevigne*. She wrote much too good
letters. . . . Who knows ? Perhaps I shall some day
clasp you in my arms again. May God so appoint it !
For God's sake, show my letter to nobody (really
nobody) ! I embrace you.

1 Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-73), the moat profound of Russian
poet- philosophers.

86 DOSTOEVSKY S LETTERS [xxvi

XXVI

To General E. I. Totleben 1

SEMIPALATINSK,

March 24, 1856.

Your Excellency Eduard Ivanovitch ! Forgive
me for daring to ask your attention to this letter.
I fear that when you see the signature and my name,
which you may indeed have forgotten though many,
many years ago I had the honour of being known to
you you will be angry with me and toss the letter
aside without reading it. I beg for your indulgence.
You might well rebuke me if I failed to realize the
quite unfathomable gulf between my position and
yours. But I have gone through too many sorrow-
ful experiences in my life to be capable of overlooking
that gulf. I know very well indeed that I have no
right whatever to remind you that you once knew
me, and thus to make even the shadow of a claim
on your attention. But I am so unhappy that,
almost against my will, I must yield to the hope that
you will not close your heart to an unfortunate exile,
and will grant him a moment's attention.

I have requested Baron Alexander Vrangel to
take you this letter. During his stay in Semipala-
tinsk, he has done more for me than my own brother
could have done. His friendship made me happy.
He knows all my circumstances. I begged him to
take you this letter in person ; he will do so, although
I could not tell him with any conviction that you
would receive the letter indulgently. Such doubts

1 Eduard Totleben (1818-84), the distinguished soldier and
engineer; builder of the fortifications of Sebastopol, which
resisted the united armies for twelve months.

JJT. 34] PLEADING 87

are easily comprehensible in the heart of a one-time
prisoner. I have a great favour to ask of you, and
only a faint hope that you will hear me.

Perhaps you have heard something of my arrest,
my trial, and the supreme ratification of the sentence
which was given in the case concerning me in the
year 1849. Perhaps you also bestowed some attention
on my fate. I base that supposition on the fact that
I once was great friends with your brother Adolf
Ivanovitch as a child, even, I loved him very
sincerely. Although of late years I have not come
in contact with him, I am still sure that he pitied
me, and perhaps told you something of my sad story.
I dare not take up your time with an account of my
trial. I was guilty, and am very conscious of it. 1
was convicted of the intention (but only the inten-
tion) of acting against the Government; I was law-
fully and quite justly condemned; the hard and
painful experiences of the ensuing years have sobered
me, and altered my views in many respects. But
then, while I was still blind, I believed in all the
theories and Utopias. When I went to Siberia, I
had at least the one comfort of having borne myself
honestly before the tribunal, of not having tried to
shift my guilt on others, and even of having sacrificed
my own interests, if thereby I thought I could save
those others. But I was at that time still convinced
of the truth of my opinions; I would not confess all,
and so was the more sternly punished. Previously
I had suffered for two years from a strange moral
disease: I had fallen into hypochondria. There was
a time when I even lost my reason. I was exagger-
atedly irritable, had a morbidly developed sensibility,
and the power of distorting the most ordinary events
into things immeasurable. But I felt that though
this disease had had a really evil influence upon my

88 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxvi

destiny, it was nevertheless a poor and even a de-
grading excuse for me. And I was not so entirely
convinced, either, that it had had that influence.
Forgive these details. Be generous, and hear me
further.

I went to prison four sad, terrible years. My
companions were criminals, men quite without human
emotions, and with perverted morals; for those four
years I beheld nothing uplifting only the blackest
and ugliest " realities." I had not one single being
within reach with whom I could exchange a cordial
word; I endured hunger, cold, sicknesses; I suffered
from the hard labours and the hatred of my com-
panions the criminals, who bore me a grudge for
being an officer and a well-born person. And yet
I swear to you that none of those torments was
greater than that which I felt when I realized my
errors, and saw that in banishment I was cut off from
my fellow-creatures and unable to serve them with
all my powers, desires, and capacities. I know that
I was punished for my ideas and theories. But ideas
and even convictions alter, nay, one's very self
alters; thus, it is very grievous for me to be now
expiating things that are no more, that have, indeed,
actually, in me, turned to their very contraries; to be
suffering for my former errors, which I now perceive
in all their folly to feel that I have the power and
the talent to do something which would really atone
for the worthlessness of my earlier activities, and yet
to languish in impotence. I am now a soldier; I
am serving at Semipalatinsk, and this summer was
promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer.
I know that many people felt and feel genuine
sympathy for me; they have exerted themselves on
my behalf, have restored me to hope, and still do
much to solace me. The monarch is kind and com-

JET. 34] HIS DEAREST WISH 89

passionate. Lastly, I know that it goes very hard
with anyone who undertakes to prove that an unlucky
man is capable of doing something worth while, if
the proof should fail. But I can do something worth
while; I am not, indeed I am not, without talent,
feeling, and principle. I have a great favour to ask
of you, Eduard Ivanovitch. Only one thing troubles
me: I have not the least right to worry you about
my affairs. But you have a great noble heart. I
may say this frankly, for you have recently proved
it to all the world. Moreover / long since had the
happiness longer since than others of forming for
myself that opinion of you; I had long learnt to
esteem you. A word from you can now accomplish
much with our gracious monarch, who is grateful to
you, and loves you. Think of the poor exile, and
help him. I want to employ myself usefully. When
one has spiritual and mental powers which one cannot
turn to account, one suffers deeply from inactivity.
For the military career I am not fitted. I earnestly
desire, so far as in me lies, to do my utmost therein;
but I am sickly, and feel strongly desirous of another
sphere of action, more suited to my capabilities. My
dearest wish would be to be released from military
service and to enter the civil service somewhere in
European Russia, or even here; and also to have
some liberty of choice as to my place of abode. But
neither form of State service do I regard as the real
purpose of my life. Some years ago, the public gave
me a very hearty and encouraging welcome in the
literary sphere. I very much desire permission to
publish my works. And there are precedents for
this: many political offenders have been graciously
pardoned and given permission to write and print.
I have always considered the calling of an author to
be an honourable and useful one. I am certain that

90 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxvi

in that sphere alone can I do valuable work ; therein
I could attract attention, retrieve my good name, and
make my life to some extent easier, for I possess
nothing but this assured, though possibly quite
modest, literary talent. But I should like to say
quite frankly : besides the honest desire to change my
present lot for one that will better correspond with
my talents, another circumstance, upon which per-
haps the happiness of my whole life depends 1 (it is
a wholly personal matter), has given me courage to
turn to you and recall myself to your mind. But
of course I am not asking for everything at once:
I am asking only for the possibility of giving up the
military, and entering the civil, service.

Read this my prayer, but do not call me poor-
spirited. I have suffered much, and by the very fact
that I have borne so many sorrows have proved my
patience and a certain degree of bravery. But now
I have lost courage I realize that, myself. I used
always to think it cowardly to trouble anyone, who-
ever it might be, with my affairs. And now, I trouble
you \ But I implore you to have mercy on me. Till
now I have borne my misfortune patiently. Now I
have broken down under the weight of circumstances
and have resolved to make this attempt it is nothing
but an attempt. I swear to you that the thought of
writing to you, and importuning you, never occurred
to me before. It would have been painful and
difficult to me to recall myself to you. In an en-
thusiastic and wholly unself-seeking spirit, I have
lately followed your heroic career. If you knew with
what delight I spoke of you to others, you would
believe me. If you knew with what pride I declared
that I had the honour of knowing you personally !
When your glorious deeds were recounted here, I

1 He hints here at his projected marriage.

^T. 34] SEBASTOPOL 91

was overwhelmed with questions about you, and it
was a joy to me that I was able to tell of you. I do
not fear to write this to you. Your deeds are so
great that even these words can hardly appear as
flattery. The bearer of this letter will be able to tell
you how sincere and unself-seeking are my feelings
towards you. The gratitude of a Russian towards
him who, at a time of national disaster, crowned the
terrible defence of Sebastopol with eternal, undying
glory, is comprehensible enough. I repeat that it
had not been my intention to trouble you in any
way. But now, when I have lost all courage, and
scarcely know to what side I shall turn, I have
reminded myself how kind, cordial, and natural you
always were with me. I thought of your ever gallant
and noble impulses, and began to hope. I asked
myself if you, who have now attained to so lofty and
glorious a position, would repulse me, who am fallen
so low ? Forgive my boldness, forgive this long
(much too long, I realize) letter; and if you can do
anything for me, do it, I implore you. And I have
yet another great request; don't refuse it me. Recall
me, sometimes, to your brother Adolf Ivanovitch's
remembrance, and tell him that I still love him as
before, and often found him among my memories
during the four years in prison, when in spirit I
would live my whole past over again, day by day
and hour by hour. But he knows himself how dearly
I love him. I do happen to know that he has lately
been ill. Is he well again ? Is he alive ? Forgive
me this request also. But I know not through
whom I may attain my heart's desire, and so turn
to you. I am aware that this letter is a grave breach
of discipline. A common soldier writes to an
Adjutant-General ! But you are generous-hearted,
and I confide in that.

92 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxvn

With deepest respect and the sincere thanks of a
Russian,

I remain,
Your Excellency's most devoted servant,

FYODOR DosxoEVSKY. 1

XXVII
To the Baron A. E. Vr angel

SEMIPALATINSK,

April 13, 1856.

[The letter begins with some not very interesting
details of Dostoevsky's material circumstances.]

You write that we political offenders may expect
certain indulgences, which, however, are still kept a
secret. Do me the kindness, dear friend, to try to
discover something concerning myself. I must know
it. If you learn anything, impart it to me without
delay. About the transfer to the Caucasus I no
longer think nor to the battalion at Barnaul. All
that is unimportant to me now.

You write that everybody loves the new Tsar.
I myself idolize him. I must confess that it is a
great object to me to be promoted; but I may still
have to wait a long time for my promotion to com-
missioned rank; and I should like to have something
now, at once, on the occasion of the Coronation
festivities. The best and wisest would be of course
that I should ask for permission to publish.

1 Totleben's minute ran: " His Majesty is pleased to order
me to suggest to the Minister of War that Fyodor Dostoevsky
be promoted to the rank of ensign in a regiment of the Second
Army Corps. Should this not be possible, he is to be trans-
ferred to the Civil Service with the rank of an official of the
fourteenth class ; in both cases he is to be permitted to employ
himself in literature, and is to be given the right to print his
works on condition of their generally lawful tendency."

^T. 34] THE NEW TSAR 93

I think of sending you very soon, privately, a poem
I have written about the Coronation. I might even
send it " officially. " You will be sure to meet
Hasford. 1 He soon starts, of course, for the Corona-
tion. Could you not persuade him to present my
poem to the Tsar ? Would it not do ? Tell me too
up to what time I am safe in writing to you, for if
you leave Petersburg, my letters might be lost, and
that would be tiresome. I have already told you
about my article on Russia. It has turned into a
regular political pamphlet. Yet I should not like
to erase a single word of that article. They will
scarcely allow me to begin my literary activity with
a pamphlet, however patriotic its contents may be.
But the article was good, and I was satisfied with
it. It interested me extraordinarily. Still, I have
abandoned the task. For if I can't get permission
to publish it, why should I have all my trouble for
nothing ? Time is too precious now for me to
waste it in writing for mere amusement. Besides,
the political atmosphere has changed. And so, I
have begun a new article: " Letters on Art." The
Grand-Duchess Maria Nikolayevna is President of
the Academy of Arts. I intend to ask permission
to dedicate this piece to her, and let it then appear
anonymously. It is the fruit of ten years' delibera-
tion. I thought it out to the last detail as long ago
as Omsk. It will have many original and burning
passages, but I can't answer for the execution of the
whole. Probably many will disagree with me on
various points. But I believe in my ideas, and that
suffices me. I should like to ask Apollon Maikov to
read it beforehand. Certain chapters contain whole
pages from the pamphlet. It deals directly with the
place of Christianity in art. But where shall I bring

1 Governor-General of Siberia.

94 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxvn

it out ? If I let it appear as a separate publication,
at most a hundred people will read it, for it is no
novel, while in a journal I might get paid for it.
Now, the Sovremennik was always hostile to me, and
so was the Moskvityanin. In the Roussky Viestnik
there has appeared the prelude to an article by
Katkov on Pushkin, where the ideas expressed are in
disaccord with mine. So there remains only the
Otetschestvennia Zapiski. But I don't know how
matters stand with that journal. Would you there-
fore find out from Maikov and your brother
whether there is any chance of publishing and
being paid for the article, and tell me what they
say; just speak of it casually, as it were. The
principal thing is that the novel at which I'm now
working affords me great enjoyment. Only with
novels shall I ever make a name and attract public
attention. All the same, it would be wiser to begin
with a serious article (upon art) and try for per-
mission to publish such an one; for nowadays people
regard a novel as an inferior sort of thing. So I
believe, at any rate. . . .

[Dostoevsky reiterates his request that Vrangel
will exert himself on his behalf.]

XXVIII
To his Brother Michael

SEMIPALATINSK,

May 31, 1858.

You beg me, my friend, to send you everything
I write. I can't remember (my memory is mostly
very bad now) I can't remember whether I told you
that I had approached Katkov (Roussky Viestnik)
and offered him my co-operation on his paper; I

ST. 36] REGULAR WORK 95

promised that this very year I'd write a long tale for
him if he would at once send me 500 roubles. Four
or five weeks ago I got those 500 roubles and a very
sensible and friendly letter from him. He writes
that he is very glad of my co-operation, and at once
responds to my request (about the 500 roubles) . He
begs me not to hurry myself in any way, and to write
only at my leisure. That's splendid. So now I am
to write a long story for the Roussky Viestnik ; the
only trouble is that I haven't arranged with Katkov
about payment by the sheet I wrote that I would
leave that matter to him.

I want to write something this year also for the
Roussky Slovo not the novel, but a tale. I won't
write the novel till I've got out of Siberia. I must
put it off till then. The motive of this book is most
excellent, the principal figure is new and has never
yet been done. But as to-day in Russia such a figure
frequently emerges in actual life (so I conclude from
the new movements and ideas of which everyone
seems full), I feel sure that I shall succeed in enrich-
ing my novel, after my return-, with fresh observa-
tions. 1 One ought not to hurry, my friend; one
must try to do nothing but what is good. You write,
my dear fellow, that I am really very vain, and want
to step forth now with a peculiarly distinguished
work; and that therefore I sit patiently on my eggs,
that the " distinguished work " may be hatched.
Well, suppose it really were the case: at any rate,
as I've now dropped the idea of bringing out the
novel at present, and am working at two stories,
which will both be only just tolerable, I don't think
there can be much talk of " hatching." Where on
earth did you pick up the theory that a picture

1 The " figure " is Raskolnikov, in, " Crime and Punish-
ment."

96 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxvm

should be painted " straight off," and so forth ? When
did you come to that conclusion ? Believe me, in all
things labour is necessary gigantic labour. Believe
me that a graceful, fleet poem of Pushkin's, consisting
of but a few lines, is so graceful and so fleet simply
because the poet has worked long at it, and altered
much. That is solid fact. Gogol wrote at his " Dead
Souls" for eight years. Everything that he did
" straight off " was crude. People say that in Shake-
speare's MSS. there is not a single erasure. That's
why there are so many monstrous errors of taste in
him. If he had worked more, the whole would have
come off better. You evidently confuse the inspira-
tion, that is, the first instantaneous vision, or emotion
in the artist's soul (which is always present), with
the work. I, for example, write every scene down at
once, just as it first comes to me, and rejoice in it;
then I work at it for months and years. I let it
inspire me, in that form, more than once (for I love
it thus); here I add, there I take away; believe me
that the scene always gains by it. One must have
the inspiration; without inspiration one can't of
course begin anything.

You write that big fees are now being paid in your
part of the world. Thus, Pissemsky got 200 or
250 roubles a sheet for his " Thousand Souls." In
such circumstances one could really live, and work at
ease. But do you really think Pissemsky's novel
excellent ? It is mediocre work possibly a " golden
mean," but nevertheless mediocre. Come ! is there
one fresh thing in it one thing of his own, that never
before was done ? All has been done before him, and
done by the most modern writers too, particularly by
Gogol. His are but ancient words to a new tune.
" Distinguished work " after foreign patterns home
products from sketches by Benvenuto Cellini. It's

JET. 36] HIS METHOD OF WORK 97

true I've read only the two first parts of the novel;
papers reach us very late here. The end of the
second part is utterly improbable, and entirely bad.
Kalinovitch, who consciously betrays, is simply im-
possible. Kalinovitch, as the author had earlier
depicted him, would have had to offer a sacrifice,
propose marriage, intoxicate himself with his own
nobility, and be convinced that he' was incapable of
any deception. Kalinovitch is so vain that he
couldn't possibly regard himself as a scoundrel. Of
course he would take his pleasure all the same, spend
a night with Nastenyka and then betray her; but
only afterwards, under" the pressure of actualities;
and he would assuredly solace himself even then, and
aver that he had acted nobly in this case also. But a
Kalinovitch who consciously betrays, is repulsive and
impossible ; that is to say, such a person is possible,
but he is not Kalinovitch. Enough of this nonsense.
I am weary of waiting for my leave.

[Here follow plans for what Dostoevsky will do
when he gets his leave.]

XXIX

To his Brother Michael

SEMIPALATINSK,

May g, 1859.

[At first he talks of his leave, which had been
granted so long ago as March 18, but of which
nothing was known in Semipalatinsk till May; and
of business matters.]

You always write me such tidings as, for example,
that Gontscharov has got 7,000 roubles for his novel,
and that Katkov (from whom I now demand 100

7

98 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxix

roubles a sheet) has offered Turgenev 4,000 roubles
for his " House of Gentlefolk " which means 400
roubles a sheet. (I have read Turgenev's novel at last.
It is extraordinarily good.) My friend ! I know very
well that I don't write as well as Turgenev; still
the difference is really not so great, and I hope
in time to write quite as well as he does. Why
do I, then, in my need, allow myself to get only
100 roubles a sheet, while Turgenev, who has 2,000
serfs, gets 400 roubles ? I am poor, and so must write
in greater haste and for money; consequently I have
to spoil everything I do.

[Here follow considerations upon the terms which
Dostoevsky thinks of offering to Kachelyov, editor
of the Roussky Slovo.}

I am now finishing a story for Katkov j 1 it has got
quite long fourteen or fifteen sheets. I have already
delivered three-quarters of it ; the rest I shall send in
the beginning of June. Now listen, Micha ! This
story has of course great faults and is, above all,
extravagantly long; but I am perfectly certain that
it has also the greatest merits and is my best work.
I have been two years writing it (with an interruption
in the middle, when I wrote " Uncle's Dream ").
The beginning and the middle are decently worked
out, but the end was written in great haste. Still I
have put my whole soul, my flesh and blood, into it.
I will not say that I have therein expressed my whole
self: that would be nonsense. I have much more to
say. And there is, in this story, far too little of the
human, that is, the passionate, element (as exempli-
fied, for instance, in " A House of Gentlefolk ") ; but
on the other hand it shows forth two colossal types,
which I have been working at and polishing for five
1 " Stepanchikovo Village."

D08TOKVSKY AT SKMIPALATINSK
(1858), IN ENSIGN'S UNIFORM.

ST. 38] HIS NEW NOVEL 99

whole years; they are (as I believe) faultlessly drawn;
wholly Russian types, and such as have been hitherto
insufficiently studied in Russian literature. I know
not whether Katkov will be able to appreciate the
book, but if it is coldly received by the public I shall
really despair. On this novel I build my highest
hopes, and, above all, that of the certainty of my
literary vocation.

[Henceforth the topic again is money.] '

XXX

To Frau Stackenschneider

[PETERSBURG],

May 3, 1860.

HONOURED AND DEAR FRAU ST.

I have now been back in Petersburg three
months, and have taken up my work again. The
whole visit to Moscow seems like a dream to me
now; here I am again amid the damp, the dirt, the
ice from Ladoga Lake, 1 the tedium, and so on.
Yes back again, and I feel as if I were in a fever.
That's because of my novel. 2 I want it to come off.
I feel that there is poetry in it, and I know that on it
depends my whole literary career. I shall have to
work night and day for the next three months. But
what a reward awaits me, when I've finished ! Rest,
a clear outlook on my surroundings, and the know-
ledge that I have done and attained what I wished.
Perhaps I shall give myself, as a treat, a few months'
travel; but first of all I shall in any event come again
to Moscow.

i In the early part of the year the ice from Lake Ladoga
comes floating down the Neva.
3 " Injury and Insult."

ioo DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxx

. . . Ambition is a good thing, but I think that
one may take it as one's aim only in things which
one has set one's-self to achieve, has made the reason
for one's existence. In anything else it's nonsense.
The only essential is to live with ease; and moreover
one must sympathize with one's fellow-creatures, and
strive to win their sympathy in return. And if,
indeed, one had no other determined aim, this would
by itself more than suffice.

But I'm beginning to philosophize again. I have
heard little or no news. Pissemsky is ill, suffering
from rheumatism. I've been to see Apollon Maikov.
He told me that Pissemsky rages, sulks, takes it very
badly; that's no wonder; such sufferings are great
torment. By-the-bye, didn't you know one Snitkin ?
He published some comic verses under the pseudonym
of Ammos Schichkin. Only think: he fell ill sud-
denly, and died within six days. The Literary Relief
Fund has undertaken to look after his family. It is
very sad. But perhaps you didn't know anything of
him. I had a talk with Krestovsky 1 lately. I like
him very much. He wrote a poem the other day,
and read it aloud to us with much pride. We told
him with one voice that the poem was atrocious; it
is our custom always to speak the truth. And what
do you think ? He wasn't in the least offended.
He is such a dear, noble youth ! I like him better
and better, and on some drinking-bout or other I
mean to drink brotherhood with him. 2 One often
has such odd impressions ! I always have this one
that Krestovsky must soon die. But whence it
comes, I can't possibly say.

We are thinking of starting a serious literary

1 Vsevolod Krestovsky, a quite unimportant but highly
popular novelist. He died about 1895.
a This is done with arms intertwined. (Translator's note.)

JST. 40] " VREMYA " 101

enterprise. We are all very busy about it. 1 Per-
haps it will come off. All these plans are but the
first step, but at any rate they indicate vitality. I
know very well what " the first step " means, and
I love it. It is better than any leap.

I have a frightful character, but not always only
at times. That's my solace.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

XXXI

To Mme. V. D. Constantine 2

PARIS,
September i, 1862.

MY DEAR AND MUCH - HONOURED VARVARA

DMITRYEVNA !

You have perhaps learnt from my letter to
Pasha 3 that I arrived happy and well in Paris, and
have settled down here, though I hardly think I shall
stay long. I don't like Paris, though it's frightfully
grand. There's a lot to see here, but when one
undertakes the seeing, terrible boredom ensues. It
would have been very different if I had come here as
a student, to learn something: very different, for I
should have had plenty to do, and should have had
to see and hear a great deal ; while for a tourist, who
is merely observing customs, the French are disgust-
ing, and the town as such is wholly unknown to me.
The best things here are the wine and the fruit: the
only things that in the long run don't pall on one.
Of my private affairs I won't write you anything.
" Letters are nonsense; only apothecaries write

1 The reference is to the journal Vremya (The Times).

2 Dostoevsky's sister-in-law ; sister of Mme. Maria
Dmitryevna.

3 Pasha [Paul] Issayev, Dostoevsky's stepson.

102 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxi

letters." 1 I will write only of a certain business
matter. I have in fact a request to make of you,
my dear Varvara Dmitryevna. You must know
that on the way I stopped four days at Wiesbaden,
and of course played roulette. And what do you
think ? I did not lose, but won; not, certainly, as
much as I could have wished, no hundred thousand,
but still a nice little sum.

N.B. : Tell this to no one, dear Varvara Dmitry-
evna. You can't, it is true, tell it to anyone, for
you don't meet anyone; but I really mean Pasha;
he is still a little goose, and would perhaps imagine
that one can make a living out of play. He took
it into his head lately to be a shop-boy, and earn
money that way: " and so I needn't learn anything,"
he informed me. " And so " he needn't know that
Papa frequents gaming-halls. Therefore tell him
not a word about it. During those four days I
watched the gamblers closely. Several hundred
persons took part in the play, and only two knew
really how to gamble my word of honour ! They
were a Frenchwoman and an English Lord; they
knew how, and lost nothing: indeed they nearly
broke the bank. But please don't think that, in
my joy at having won and not lost, I am swagger-
ing, and imagining that 7 know the secret of play.
I do know the secret, and it is extremely stupid
and simple: it consists in controlling one's-self the
whole time, and never getting excited at any phase
of the game. That is all; in that way one can't
possibly lose and must win. The whole point is
that the man who knows this secret should have the
power and capacity to turn it rightly to account.
One may be ever so intelligent, one may have a
character of pure iron, and yet one may come to

1 Quotation from Gogol's " Memoirs of a Madman."

JET. 41] THE SECRET OF PLAY 103

grief. Even that philosopher Strachov would lose.
Blessed therefore are they who do not gamble, who
detest roulette and look upon it as the height of
folly.

But to the point. I have, dear Varvara Dmitry-
evna, won 5,000 francs; or rather, I had won, at first,
10,400 francs, taken the money home, put it in my
wallet, and resolved 'to depart next day and not go
into the gaming-rooms again. But I did not hold
out, and played away half the money again. So only
5,000 francs are left. A part of these winnings I have
reserved to myself in case of accidents, and the rest I
am sending to Petersburg: half to my brother, that
he may put it by till my return, and the other half to
you, to give or send to Maria Dmitryevna.

[He then discusses how the money may best be
sent from abroad, and changed in Russia.]

XXXII

To N. N. Strachov 1

ROME,
September 18 [30], 1863.

[Dostoevsky begins by begging Strachov to settle
his accounts at the office of the Booklover's Library.]

And Boborykin 2 may as well know what is known
already to the Sovremennik and the Otetschestvennia
Zapiski : that I never in my life have sold a work
(with the exception of " Poor Folk ") for which I

1 Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov, critic and philosopher
(1828-96), was a close friend of Dostoevsky and Grigorovitch.
He headed an embittered political campaign against Nihilism
and the material tendencies of the 'sixties.

3 Pyotr Boborykin, a still living popular novelist. At that
time he was editor of the Booklover's Library.

io 4 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxn

have not been paid in advance. I am a proletarian
among the authors, and if anyone wants my work, he
must pay me for it beforehand. I myself condemn
this system. But I have established it once for all,
and will never abandon it. So now I'll go on:

At the moment I have nothing ready. But I have
(what seems to me) a very good idea for a story. 1
The greater part of it is already jotted down on
scraps of paper. I have even begun the actual
execution, but in the first place it's too^hot here, and
in the second I don't want to spend more than a week
in Rome; how could anyone, staying only eight days
in a city like Rome, get any writing done ? All the
going-about tires me extraordinarily. My story will
depict a typical figure, a Russian living abroad. You
know of course that last summer there was a great
deal of talk in our journals about the absentee
Russian. This will all be reflected in my story.
And the present state of our interior organizations
will also (as well as I can do it, of course) be woven
into the narrative. I depict a man of most simple
nature, a man who, while developed in many respects,
is yet in every way incomplete, who has lost all
faith, yet at the same time does not dare to be a
sceptic, who revolts against all authority and yet at
the same time fears it. He comforts himself with
the thought that in Russia there is nothing that he
can do, and therefore condemns in the harshest
manner those who would summon the absentee
Russians back to Russia. I can't tell it all here.
The character is very vivid (I can literally see it stand-
ing before me), and when once the story is finished it
will be worth reading. The real idea, though, lies in
his having wasted all his substance, energies, and
talents on roulette. He is a gambler, but no common

i "The Gambler."

2ET. 4i J " THE GAMBLER " 105

gambler, just as the " miserly knight " of Pushkin is
no common miser. (I don't in the least mean to
compare myself with Pushkin. I only use the com-
parison for lucidity's sake.) He is in his way a poet,
yet he is ashamed of such poetry, for he feels pro-
foundly its vulgarity, even though the longing for
touch-and-go ennobles him in his own eyes. The
whole story is concerned with his playing roulette for
full three years.

If my " Dead House " as a picture of the prison,
which no one before me had thus psychologically
displayed greatly interested the public, the new
story, as a psychological and faithful portrait of the
roulette-player, will interest them still more. Apart
from the fact that that kind of work is read among
us with the deepest interest, one must also consider
that the gambling in a foreign watering-place is
notorious, and the chief topic of the absentee Russian;
this has, in addition to the rest, a certain (though
of course inferior) importance.

In short, I dare to hope that I shall succeed in
depicting all these most absorbing circumstances with
feeling, understanding, and not too long-windedly.
The story may be very good indeed. My " Dead
House " was really most interesting. And here
again shall be the picture of a hell, of the same kind
as that " Turkish bath in the prison." I want to
do this one too, and I shall take enormous pains
about it.

[Henceforth money matters prevail.]

io6 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxm

XXXIII
To A. P. Milyukov 1

[Moscow],

June, 1866.

MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND ALEXANDER

PETROVITCH !

Katkov is taking the summer air at Petrovsky-
Park; Lyubimov (the editor of the Roussky Viestnik)
also is taking the air. At the office one only now
and then conies across the moping secretary, from
whom one can extract nothing. I did, however,
succeed in the early days in catching Lyubimov. He
has had three chapters of my novel already set up. 2
I proposed to him that I should write the fourth
chapter in less than no time; the four would make
exactly half the conclusion of the second part (four
sheets); in the next number they could print four
more chapters that is, to the end of the second part.
Lyubimov, however, almost interrupted me to say:
" I was waiting to tell you that now, in June and
July, we can print the novel in smaller portions in
fact, we must; one number, even, seeing it's the
summer season, might have no portion at all. We
should prefer to arrange that the whole second half
of the novel appears in the autumn, and the end in
the December number, for the effect of the novel
ought to help towards the new year's subscriptions."
It was therefore decided to pause for yet another
month. The four chapters (four sheets) will there-
fore not appear till the July number, and are already
in proof.

Later, however, it appeared that Lyubimov had

1 See the Reminiscences of Milyukov, in the Appendix.
a " Crime and Punishment."

JLT, 44] " CRIME AND PUNISHMENT " 107

yet another infamous back-thought: namely, that he
won't print one of the chapters at all, and Katkov has
approved of this his decision. 1 I was infuriated with
them both. But they insist on their scheme ! About
the chapter in question, I myself can't say at all: I
wrote it in a positive inspiration, but it may be that
it's really bad; however, with them it's not a question
of the literary value, but of nervousness about the
morality of it. In this respect I am in the right;
the chapter contains nothing immoral, quite the con-
trary indeed; but they're of another opinion, and
moreover see traces of Nihilism therein. Lyubimov
told me finally that I must write the chapter over
again. I undertook to do so, and the re- writing of
this great chapter gave me at least as much labour
and trouble as three new ones. Nevertheless I have
re-written, and delivered it. Unfortunately I haven't
seen Lyubimov since, so I don't know whether they're
satisfied with the new version, or will write it all
over again themselves. This actually happened to
another chapter (of these four) : Lyubimov told me
that he had struck out a great deal of it. (That I
didn't particularly mind, for they deleted a quite
unimportant passage.)

I don't know how it will turn out, but the differ-
ences of opinion which this novel has brought to light
between me and the office, begin to trouble me.

The novel for Stellovsky 2 I haven't yet begun,
but certainly shall begin. I have a plan for a most
decent little novel; there will even be shadows of
actual characters in it. The thought of Stellovsky

1 It is the ninth chapter of the second part of " Crime and
Punishment"; the scene where Sonia and Raskolnikov to-
gether read the Gospel had given offence. Dostoevsky was
obliged to shorten the chapter.

a Publisher of the first edition of the " Collected Works "
(1865-66).

io8 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

torments and disturbs me; it pursues me even in
dreams.

I'm telling you all this very cursorily and in great
haste, though my letter's long enough. Answer me,
for God's sake. Write to me about yourself, your
life, your views, and your health. Write to me also
of our people; have you perhaps heard some news ?
I must be silent about many things. My best
regards to your Ludmilla Alexandrovna; remember
me to all your children, and greet all common
acquaintances from me. Till next time, my kind
friend, I embrace you and remain your

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

N.B. I have not had any attacks up to the
present. I drink schnaps. How does it stand with
the cholera ?

XXXIV

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

GENEVA,

August 16 [28], 1867.

So long have I kept silence, and not answered your
welcome letter, my dear and unforgettable friend
Apollon Nikolayevitch. I call you unforgettable
friend, and feel deep in my heart that that description
is just; we are both such old and accustomed friends
that life, which sometimes parted us and even separated
us, not only has not succeeded in really " separating "
us, but has actually drawn us closer together. You
write that you feel my absence to a certain extent;
much more do I feel yours. Quite apart from the
fact that every day shows me more clearly the like-
ness and sympathy between our thoughts and feelings,
I beg you to observe as well that I, since I lost you,

/EX. 45] MAIKOV 109

have come over into a strange land, where not only
are there no Russian faces, Russian books, Russian
thoughts and concerns, but no friendly faces of any
sort. I truly cannot understand how any Russian
living abroad, if he be a man of heart and intelligence,
can fail to notice this, and be made miserable by it.
Perhaps all these faces are friendly to one another;
I can only say that I feel they're not friendly to us.
It really is so ! How can people endure this living
abroad ? By God, without home, life is torture f
I can understand going abroad for six months, or
even a year. But to travel, as I do, without knowing
or even guessing when one will get home again, is
very bad and grievous. The mere thought of it is
hard to bear. I need Russia for my work, for my life
(I speak of no life but that). I am like a fish out of
water; I lose all my energies, all my faculties. . . .
You know in what circumstances I left home, and
for what reason. There are two principal reasons:
in the first place, I had to save my health and even
my life. The attacks were recurring every eight days,
and it was unbearable to feel and recognize the destruc-
tion of my nerves and brain. I really was beginning
to lose my senses that is a fact. I felt it; the ruin
of my nerves often drove me to the very edge of
things. The second reason is that my creditors
would wait no longer, and on the day of my departure
several summonses were out against me. . . .

[He pursues the topic of his debts.]

. . . The burden was unbearable. I departed, with
death in my heart. I had no faith in foreign lands
rather, I believed they might have a bad moral effect
upon me. I was wholly isolated, without resources,
and with a young creature 1 by my side, who was
second wife, Anna Grigorovna, born Snitkin.

no DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

naively delighted at sharing my wandering life; but
I saw that that na'ive delight arose partly from inex-
perience and youthful ardour, and this depressed and
tormented me. I was afraid that Anna Grigorovna
would find life with me a tedious thing. For up to
the present we have been literally alone. Of myself
I could hope little: my nature is morbid, and I
anticipated that she would have much to bear from
me. (N.B. Anna Grigorovna indeed proved herself
to be of a nature much stronger and deeper than I
had expected ; in many ways she has been my guardian
angel; at the same time, there is much that is child-
ish and immature in her, and very beautiful and
most necessary and natural it is, only I can hardly
respond to it. All this I saw vaguely before our
departure; and although, as I said, Anna Grigorovna
is finer and stronger than I had guessed, I am not
even now free from all uneasiness.) Finally, our
insufficient means caused me much anxiety; we had
only a very little money, and owed Katkov an
advance of three thousand (I) roubles. To be sure,
I intended to begin work immediately after our
departure. But what actually came to pass ? Up
to the present I have accomplished nothing, or
almost nothing, and want now to set seriously to
work at last. I must confess that I don't feel
sure I've really accomplished nothing, for I have
lived through so much, and framed so much in
my mind; still, in black and white I have set
down very little as yet ; and only what stands
written in black and white is valid and money-
making.

We left tedious Berlin as soon as we could (I could
only stop one day there, for the tiresome Germans
made me nervous and irascible, and I had to take
refuge in the Russian baths), and went to Dresden.

JJT. 45] RUSSIAN AFFAIRS in

In Dresden we took lodgings and installed ourselves
for a time.

The effect was very singular; instantly this question
presented itself to me: Why am I in Dresden, just
Dresden, and not in any other town; and why on
earth had I to leave one place and go to another ?
The answer was most clear (my health, the debts,
etc.). But worse is the clear perception that now
I don't in the least care where I may have to dwell.
In Dresden or another town everywhere, in foreign
lands, I feel like a slice cut from the loaf. I had
meant to set to work the very first day, but I felt
that I could not possibly work there, that all my
impressions were topsy-turvy. What did I do ? I
vegetated. I read, wrote a few lines now and then,
nearly died of home-sickness, and, later, of heat.
The days went monotonously by. . . .

I can't possibly tell you all my thoughts. I collected
many impressions. I read Russian newspapers and
solaced myself thus. I felt eventually that so many
new ideas had been garnered up that I could write
a long article on Russia's relations to Western Europe,
and on the upper classes of Russian society. I should,
indeed, have had plenty to say ! The Germans got
on my nerves; and our Russian way of living, the
life of the upper classes, the faith in Europe and
civilization in which those upper classes are steeped
all that got on my nerves also. The incident in Paris
upset me frightfully. 1 Impressive, weren't they ? the
Paris lawyers who cried " Vive la Pologne !" Faugh,
how nauseous, how stupid, how insipid ! I felt more
than ever confirmed in my view that it is rather
advantageous for us that Europe does not know us
in the least, and has such a disgusting idea of us.

1 Beresovsky'i attempt upon the life of Alexander II.

H2 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

And then the details of the proceedings against
Beresovsky ! How ugly, how empty; I can't imagine
how they can ever recover from such twaddle, and
get on to the next point !

Russia, seen from here, looks to a Russian much
more plastic. On the one hand is the rare fact that
- our people have shown such unexpected independence
and maturity in the initiation of reforms (as, for
example, the judicial ones) ; on the other there is that
news of the flogging of a merchant of the first guild
in the Orenburg Government by the Chief of Police.
One thing is clear: that the Russian people, thanks
to its benefactor and his reforms, is at last in such
a situation that it must of necessity accustom itself
to affairs and self-criticism; and that's the principal
thing. By God, our age, in regard to reforms and
changes, is almost as important as that of Peter the
Great. How goes it with the railways ? We must
get down as quickly as possible to the south; 1 this is
tremendously important. Before then, we must have
equitable tribunals everywhere; how great will be the
transformation ! (I, over here, keep thinking of all
these things, and my heart beats fast). I see hardly
anyone here; it is quite impossible, though, not to
come across somebody or other. In Germany I met
a Russian who always lives abroad; he goes to Russia
for about three weeks each year, and then returns to
Germany, where he has a wife and family; they have
all become German through and through. Among
other things I asked him: "Why actually did you
leave home?" He answered me hotly and curtly:
" Because here is civilization, and with us is bar-
barism." This gentleman belongs to the Young
Progressives, but seems to keep himself aloof from

1 Here Dostoevsky refers to Russia's efforts to get down to
the Bosphorus and Constantinople.

T. 45] GAMBLING 113

them all to some extent. What snarling, peevish
curs all these absentees do become !

At last, Anna Grigorovna and I could no longer
bear our home-sickness in Dresden. . . . We decided
to spend the winter somewhere in Switzerland or
Italy. But we had no money at all. What we had
brought with us was all spent. I wrote to Katkov,
described my situation, and begged him for a further
advance of 500 roubles. And what do you think: he
sent me the money ! What an excellent fellow he
is ! So we came to Switzerland. Now I am going
to confess to you my baseness and my shame.

My dear Apollon Nikolayevitch, I feel that I may
regard you as my judge. You have heart and feeling,
as I have always, and of late freshly, been convinced;
and therefore I have ever prized your judgment
highly. I don't suffer in confessing my sins to you.
What I write you to-day is meant for you alone.
Deliver me not to the judgment of the mob.

When I was travelling in the neighbourhood of
Baden-Baden, I decided to turn aside and visit the
place. I was tortured by a seductive thought:
10 louis-d'or to risk, and perhaps 2,000 francs to win;
such a sum would suffice me for four months, even
with the expenses that I have in Petersburg. The
vile part of it is that in earlier years I had occasionally
won. But the worst is that I have an evil and exag-
geratedly passionate nature. In all things I go to
the uttermost extreme; my life long I have never
been acquainted with moderation.

The devil played his games with me at the begin-
ning; in three days I won, unusually easily, 4,000
francs. Now I'll show you how I worked matters
out: on the one hand, this easy gain from 100

francs I had in three days made 4,000 ; on

the other, my debts, my summonses, my heartfelt

8

H4 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

anxiety and the impossibility of getting back to
Russia; in the third place, and this is the principal
point, the play itself. If you only knew how it draws
one on ! No I swear to you it was not the love of
winning alone, though I actually needed the money
for the money's sake. Anna Grigorovna implored me
to be contented with the 4,000 francs, and depart at
once. But that easy and probable possibility of
bettering my situation at one blow ! And the many
examples ! Apart from my own gains, I saw every
day how the other gamblers won from 20,000 to
30,000 francs (one never sees anyone lose). Why
should those others do better than I ? I need the
money more than they do. I risked again, and lost.
I lost not only what I had won, but also my own
money down to the last farthing; I got feverishly
excited, and lost all the time. Then I began to pawn
my garments. Anna Grigorovna pawned her last,
her very last, possession. (That angel ! How she
consoled me, how she suffered in that cursed Baden,
in our two tiny rooms above the blacksmith's forge,
the only place we could afford !) At last I had had
enough; everything was gone. (How base are these
Germans ! They are all usurers, rascals, and cheats !
When our landlady saw that we could not leave,
having no money, she raised our prices !) At last we
had to save ourselves somehow and flee from Baden.
I wrote again to Katkov and begged him for 500
roubles (I wrote nothing of the circumstances, but
as the letter came from Baden, he probably guessed
the state of affairs). And he sent me the money !
He did really ! So now I have had altogether from
the Roussky Viestnik 4,000 roubles in advance.

Now to end my Baden adventures: we agonized
in that hell for seven weeks. Directly after my
arrival there, I met Gontscharov at the railway-

51.45] HIS QUARREL WITH TURGENEV 115

station. At first Ivan Alexandrovitch was cautious
before me. That State-Councillor or State-Council-
lor that ought-to-be was also occupied in gambling.
But when he realized that it could not be kept a
secret, and as I myself was playing with gross pub-
licity, he soon ceased to pretend to me. He played
with feverish excitement (though only for small
stakes). He played during the whole fortnight that
he spent in Baden, and lost, I think, quite a good
deal. But God give this good fellow health; when I
had lost everything (he had, however, seen me with
large sums in my hands), he gave me, at my request,
60 francs. Certainly he lectured me terribly at the
same time, because I had lost all, and not only half,
like him !

Gontscharov talked incessantly about Turgenev; I
kept putting off my visit to him still, eventually I
had to call. I went about noon, and found him at
breakfast. I'll tell you frankly I never really liked
that man. The worst of it is that since 185 7,* at
Wiesbaden, I've owed him 50 dollars (which even
to-day I haven't yet paid back !). I can't stand the
aristocratic and Pharisaical sort of way he embraces
one, and offers his cheek to be kissed. He puts on
monstrous airs; but my bitterest complaint against
him is his book " Smoke." He told me himself that
the leading idea, the point at issue, in that book, is
this: "If Russia were destroyed by an earthquake
and vanished from the globe, it would mean no loss
to humanity it would not even be noticed." He
declared to me that that was his fundamental view of
Russia. I found him in irritable mood; it was on
account of the failure of " Smoke." I must tell you
that at the time the full details of that failure were
unknown to me. I had heard by letter of Strachov's

1 An error. He can refer only to the year 1862 or 1863.

n6 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

article in the 0. Z., but I didn't know that they had
torn him to pieces in all the other papers as well, and
that in Moscow, at a club, I believe, people had
collected signatures to a protest against " vSmoke."
He told me that himself. Frankly, I never could
have imagined that anyone could so naively and
clumsily display all the wounds in his vanity, as
Turgenev did that day; and these people go about
boasting that they are atheists. He told me that he
was an uncompromising atheist. My God ! It is to
Deism that we owe the Saviour that is to say, the
conception of a man so noble that one cannot grasp it
without a sense of awe a conception of which one
cannot doubt that it represents the undying ideal
of mankind. And what do we owe to these gentry
Turgenev, Herzen, Utin, Tchernychevsky ? In
place of that loftiest divine beauty on which they
spit, we behold in them such ugly vanity, such un-
ashamed susceptibility, such ludicrous arrogance, that
it is simply impossible to guess what it is that they
hope for, and who shall take them as guides. He
frightfully abused Russia and the Russians. But I
have noticed this: all those Liberals and Progressives
who derive chiefly from Bielinsky's school, find their
pleasure and satisfaction in abusing Russia. The
difference is that the adherents of Tchernychevsky
merely abuse, and in so many words desire that
Russia should disappear from the face of the earth
(that, first of all !). But the others declare, in the
same breath, that they love Russia. And yet they
hate everything that is native to the soil, they
delight in caricaturing it, and were one to oppose
them with some fact that they could not explain
away or caricature any fact with which they were
obliged to reckon they would, I believe, be pro-
foundly unhappy, annoyed, even distraught. And

JET. 45] DOSTOEVSKY SPEAKS OUT 117

I've noticed that Turgenev and for that matter all
who live long abroad have no conception of the true
facts (though they do read the newspapers), and have
so utterly lost all affection and understanding for
Russia that even those quite ordinary matters which
in Russia the very Nihilists no longer deny, but only
as it were caricature after their manner these fellows
cannot so much as grasp. Amongst other things he
told me that we are bound to crawl in the dust before
the Germans, that there is but one universal and
irrefutable way that of civilization, and that all
attempts to create an independent Russian culture
are but folly and pigheadedness. He said that he was
writing a long article against the Russophils and Slavo-
phils. I advised him to order a telescope from Paris
for his better convenience. " What do you mean ?" he
asked. " The distance is somewhat great," I replied;
" direct the telescope on Russia, and then you will be
able to observe us; otherwise you can't really see
anything at all." He flew into a rage. When I saw
him so angry, I said with well-simulated naivete":
" Really I should never have supposed that all the
articles derogatory to your new novel could have dis-
composed you to this extent ; by God, the thing's not
worth getting so angry about. Come, spit upon it
all !" "I'm not in the least discomposed. What
are you thinking of ?" he answered, getting red.

I interrupted him, and turned the talk to personal
and domestic matters. Before going away, I brought
forth, as if quite casually and without any particular
object, all the hatred that these three months have
accumulated in me against the Germans. " Do you
know what swindlers and rogues they are here ?
Verily, the common people are much more evil and
dishonest here than they are with us; and that they
are stupider there can be no doubt. You are always

n8 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxiv

talking of civilization ; with what has your ' civiliza-
tion ' endowed the Germans, and wherein do they
surpass us ?" He turned pale (it is no exaggeration),
and said: " In speaking thus, you insult me person-
ally. You know quite well that I have definitely
settled here, that I consider myself a German and
not a Russian, and am proud of it." I answered:
" Although I have read your ' Smoke,' and have just
talked with you for a whole hour, I could never
have imagined that you would say such a thing.
Forgive me, therefore, if I have insulted you."

Then we took leave of one another very politely,
and I promised myself that I would never again
cross Turgenev's threshold. The next day, Turgenev
came at exactly ten o'clock in the morning to my
abode, and left his card with the landlady. But as I
had told him the day before that I never saw anyone
till noon, and that we usually slept till eleven, I
naturally took his ten-o'clock call as a hint that he
doesn't wish to see any more of me. During the
whole seven weeks, I saw him only once more, at the
railway-station. We looked at one another, but no
greeting passed. The animosity with which I speak
of Turgenev, and the insults we offered one another,
will perhaps strike you unpleasantly. But, by God,
I can no other; he offended me too deeply with his
amazing views. Personally, I really feel little affected,
though his uppish manners are quite disagreeable
enough in themselves; but I simply can't stand by
and listen when a traitor who, if he chose, could be
of service to his country, abuses Russia in the way he
does. His tail-wagging to the Germans, and his
hatred for the Russians, I had noticed already four
years ago. But his present rage and fury against
Russia arises solely, solely, from the failure of
" Smoke," and from the fact that Russia has dared

JET. 45] REMORSE AND ANXIETY 119

refuse to hail him as a genius. It is nothing but
vanity, and therefore all the more repulsive.

Hear now, my friend, what I have in view. Of
course it was vile in me to gamble away so much.
But I have lost a relatively small sum of my own
actual money. Still, it would have lasted us for two
months in our present mode of living, even for four.
I have already told you that I can't resist winning.
If, right at the beginning, I had lost the ten louis-
d'or that I chose to stake, I should certainly have
played no more, and gone away at once. But the
gain of 4,000 francs destroyed me. The temptation
of winning more (which appeared so easy) and in
that way paying all my debts, and being able to
provide for myself and mine Emilie Fyodorovna,
Pasha, and the others ... it was too much for me,
I could not resist it. But even this is no excuse, for
I was not alone. I had with me a young, warm-
hearted, pretty creature who trusted me, whom I
should have protected and sheltered, and whom
consequently I ought not to have dragged down
with myself to destitution, by setting my entire,
though certainly not very great, possessions upon the
turn of a game. My future appears to me very
dark; above all, I cannot, for the reasons I have
mentioned, return to Russia; and most heavily am I
oppressed by the question: What is to become of
those who depend on my help ? All these thoughts
murder me. . . .

You alone, my dear friend, are kind to me; you
are my Providence. Help me in the future, too.
For in all my great and small matters, I shall call
upon your aid.

You well understand the basis of all my hopes: it
is clear that only under one condition can everything
be arranged so as to bring forth fruit namely, that

120 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxv

my novel really succeeds. To that I must devote all
my powers. Ah, my dear fellow, how grave, how
unendurably grave it was for me, three years ago, to
yield to* the crazy hope that I should be able to pay
all those debts, and therefore to sign the many bills
of exchange. Whence shall I draw the needful
energy and vitality ? Experience indeed has shown
that I can make a success; but what are the con-
ditions ? These alone : that every one of my works
so succeeds as to awaken the keenest public interest;
else all goes crash. And is that really possible ? Is
there any use in reckoning on it ? ...

[The letter ends with a request for a loan and
a further description of Dostoevsky's desperate
situation.]

XXXV

To his Niece, Sofia Alexandrovna

GENEVA,
September 29 [October n], 1867.

Good-day, my dear friend Sonetchka. Don't be
cross with me for my far too long silence nor with
Anna Grigorovna. A. G. has had a letter to you
ready for a week and more, but she will not send it
with this, for she wants to add something to it.
Frankly, I want to entice an answer from you. We
are so frightfully bored here in Geneva that every
letter you write to us will be reckoned as a good deed
to you in Heaven. Moreover, you know yourself how
very much I love you, and how deeply interested I
am in everything that happens in your life. We
arranged our trip very stupidly. We ought to have
had more money, so that we could change our place
of abode as often as we wished. We have had to

JET. 45] ANNA GRIGOROVNA 121

turn our travels into a stay abroad, instead of a tour
through Europe.

Life abroad, wherever it may be, is very tiresome.
As it was very expensive and very dusty in Paris, and
as the summer in Italy was very hot, and cholera was
cropping up there, we have spent this summer in
different parts of Germany, which we chose according
to the beauty of the scenery and the goodness of the
air. Everywhere it was tiresome, everywhere the
scenery was fine, and everywhere I had fairly good
health. I was most particularly glad that Anna
Grigorovna did not feel bored at all, though I am not
an over-agreeable companion, and we have lived six
months at a time together without friends or acquaint-
ance. In that time we refreshed many of our old
memories, and I swear to you that we would have
enjoyed ourselves ten times better if we had spent the
summer, not in foreign lands, but at Lublin, near you.
Anna Grigorovna has developed a great talent for
travelling; wherever we went, she discovered every-
thing that was worth seeing, and at once wrote down
her impressions; she has filled countless little note-
books and so on with her hieroglyphics; unfortu-
nately she did not see half enough, even so. At last
the autumn arrived. Our money no longer sufficed
for a trip to Italy, and there were other hindrances
besides. We thought of Paris, and later regretted
much that we had not gone there, instead of to
Geneva. I had already, it is true, been three times
at Geneva, but had never stayed there long, and so
knew nothing of the climate of the town : the weather
changes at least three times a day, and I have had
my attacks again, just as in ^Petersburg. Never-
theless I must work, and must stop at least five
months at Geneva. I am very seriously attacking a
novel (which I shall give myself the pleasure of

122 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxv

dedicating to you, that is, Sonetchka, Sofia Alexan-
drovna Ivanovna, as I long since decided); I am
going to publish it in the Roussky Viestnik. I don't
know whether I shall bring it off; my God, if it
weren't for my poverty, I should never have made up
my mind to publish it now that is, in these days of
ours. The sky is so overcast. Napoleon has declared
that already he perceives several black marks on his
horizon. To settle the Mexican, the Italian, and,
chiefest of all, the German questions, he will have
to divert public attention by a war, and win the
French to himself by the old method a successful
campaign. But though the French of to-day are
probably not thus to be beguiled, a war is nevertheless
very likely. You will already have seen this yourself
(do you, by the way, read some newspapers ? For
God's sake, do ! Nowadays they must be read, not
only because it is the mode, but so as to trace the ever
more decisively and strikingly evident connection of
great and small events). But if war does break out,
artistic wares will fall considerably in price. This is
a very important contingency, which of itself makes
me thoughtful. With us in Russia, indeed, there has
lately been apparent, even without war, a great in-
difference to artistic things. Most of all I dread
mediocrity: a work should either be very good or
very bad, but, for its life, not mediocre. Mediocrity
that takes up thirty printed sheets is something quite
unpardonable.

I beg you, dear, to write me as fully as possible
about everything that has happened to you and
yours in these six months. What have you I mean
you, yourself been doing, and what are your plans ?
We shall have to make ours very much the same.
My passport is good only for six months, but I shall
have to stay here six months longer, or perhaps even

JET. 45] RUSSIAN ABSENTEES 123

more. It depends on purely business matters. And
yet I should like to get back to Russia, and that for
many reasons. In the first place, I should then have
a fixed place of abode. Moreover, after my return, I
should decidedly like to edit something in the shape
of a paper. 1 (I think I have spoken before to you
of this; the form and scope of the undertaking I
now see quite clearly in my mind's eye.) Now for
that, I must be at home, where I can hear everything
with my own ears and see it with my own eyes. For
the rest, I'm glad that I now have some work on
hand; if I hadn't, I should die of ennui; whether,
when the novel is finished (which it may not be for a
long time), I shall begin anything else in these foreign
lands, I really don't know. I simply can't understand
the Russian " tourists," who often stay here three
years. A trip abroad may be useful, and even enjoy-
able, if it lasts about six months, and if one stays
nowhere longer than a fortnight and keeps continually
on the go. And one might really get well on such
a trip. But there are people who live here long
with their families, educate their children here, forget
the Russian language, and finally, when they are at
the end of their resources, return home, and set up to
instruct us, instead of learning from us. Yes; here
they stay mouldering, and then need a whole year to
get used to things at home and fall into the right
groove again. In particular a writer (unless he's a
scholar or a specialist) can't possibly stay long. In
our craft, truth is the chief thing; but here one can
see only Swiss truth.

Geneva lies on the Lake of Geneva. The lake is
wonderful, its shores are picturesque, but Geneva
itself is the essence of tedium. It is an old Protestant

1 " The Diary of a Writer." (This plan was carried out in
1873-)

124 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxv

town, and yet one sees countless drunken people
everywhere. When I arrived here, the Peace Con-
gress was just beginning, to which Garibaldi himself
came. He went away immediately afterwards. It
was really incredible how these socialist and revolu-
tionary gentlemen whom hitherto I had known only
from books, sat and flung down lies from the platform
to their audience of five thousand ! It's quite
indescribable. One can hardly realize, even for one's-
self, the absurdity, feebleness, futility, disunion, and
the depth of essential contradictoriness. And it is
this rabble which is stirring up the whole unfortunate
working-class ! It's too deplorable. That they may
attain to peace on earth, they want to root out the
Christian faith, annihilate the Great Powers and cut
them up into a lot of small ones, abolish capital,
declare that all property is common to all, and so
forth. And all this is affirmed with no logical
demonstration whatever; what they learnt twenty
years ago, they are still babbling to-day. Only when
fire and sword have exterminated everything, can, in
their belief, eternal peace ensue. But enough of this.
I shall most certainly answer your letters, dear, by
return of post.

Your very loving

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

XXXVI

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

GENEVA,
October g [21], 1867.

[At first he talks of his want of money.]

As far as I personally am concerned, I don't care
at all where I spend the next five months, for I
intend to work for at least that time. But though

JET. 46] THE GENEVESE 125

that is so, Geneva is nevertheless detestable and I
deceived myself grossly in regard to it. My attacks
recur every week here; and also I sometimes have
a peculiar, very troublesome fluttering of the heart.
It is a horrible town, like Cayenne. There are
storms that last for days, and even on the most
normal days the weather changes three and four
times. And this I have to endure /, with my
haemorrhoids and epilepsy ! And then, it's so
gloomy, so depressing ! And the people are so self-
satisfied and boastful ! It is the mark of quite
peculiar stupidity to be so self-satisfied. Everything
is ugly here, utterly rotten, and expensive. The
people are always drunk ! Even in London there
are not so many rowdies and " drunks." Every
single thing, every post in the street, they regard as
beautiful and majestic. " Where is such-and-such a
street ?" one asks. " Voyez, monsieur, vous irez tout
droit, et quand vous passerez prls de cette majestueuse
et elegante fontaine en bronze, vous prendrez," etc.
The " majestueuse et elegante fontaine " is an insig-
nificant and tasteless object in the rococo style; but a
Genevese must always boast, even if you only ask him
the way. They've made a little garden out of a few
bushes (there's not a single tree in it), about as big as
two of fche front gardens that one sees in Sadovaya
Street in Moscow; but they must needs photograph
it, and sell the pictures as a view of " the English
Garden at Geneva." The devil run away with the
humbugs ! And all the while there lies, only two
and a half hours from Geneva on the same lake, the
town of Vevey, where, I am told, the climate in
winter is very healthy and even pleasant. Who
knows perhaps we shall move over there, one of
these days. Nothing depends on me now. Let come
what come will.

126 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxvi

Of my work I will write you nothing, for I have
nothing to say about it as yet. Only one thing: I
have to go at it hard, very hard indeed. In the
intervals, my attacks rob me of all vitality, and after
each one, I can't collect my thoughts for at least four
days. And how well I was, at first, in Germany !
This confounded Geneva ! I don't know what on
eartfc will become of us. And the novel is my one
means of salvation. The worst of it is that it must
absolutely come off. Nothing less will do. That's a
sine qua non. But how can it, when all my capabili-
ties are utterly crippled by my malady ! I still have
my power of vision intact; of late my work has
shown me that. And nerves I have still. But I
have lost all memory. In short, I must take this
book by storm, fling myself on it head foremost, and
stake all on the hazard of the die, come what may !
Enough of that.

I read the news about Kelsiyev 1 with much emo-
tion. That's the right way, that's truth and reason !
But be you very sure of this that (of course except-
ing the Poles) all our Liberals of socialistic leanings
will rage like wild beasts. It will thrill them to the
marrow. They'll hate it worse than if all their noses
had been cut off. What are they to say now, whom
now shall they bespatter ? The most they can do is
to gnash their teeth; and everyone at home quite
understands that. Have you ever yet heard a
sensible idea from any of our Liberals ? They can
but gnash their teeth, at any time; and indeed it
mightily impresses school-boys. Of Kelsiyev, it will
now be maintained that he has denounced them all.
By God, you'll see that I am right. But can anyone

1 V. Kelsiyev, a political emigre, and collaborator with
Herzen. He came back to Russia penitent, and became a
collaborator on the extremely conservative Rousshy Viesttiik.

JET. 46] LONG LIVE RUSSIA ! 127

" denounce " them, I ask you ? In the first place,
they have themselves compromised themselves; in
the second who takes the slightest interest in them ?
They're not worth denouncing ! . . .

[Again he writes of money and business matters.]

What will happen now jn politics ? In what will
all our anticipations end ? Napoleon seems to have
something up his sleeve. Italy, Germany. . . My
heart stood still with joy when I read the news that
the railway is to be opened as far as Kursk. Let it
but come quickly, and then long live Russia !

XXXVII

To his Stepson, P. A . Issayev

GENEVA,
October 10 [22], 1867.

Your letter, dear boy, uncommonly delighted me.
If you thought that I should forget you after my
marriage (for I observed that you really were of that
opinion, and I purposely did not set you right), you
were wholly mistaken. It is quite the other way.
Know now that I care for you even more since my
marriage, and God be my witness that I suffer very
much through being able to help you so little. I
have always considered you a cheerful, plucky boy,
and I retain that opinion. A person with those
qualities must be happy in any position of life. I
also think you very intelligent. Only one thing is
against you: your lack of education. But if you
really have no desire to learn something, at least hear
my advice: you must, in any case, be earnest about
your moral development, so far as that is capable of
going without education (but, for education, one

128 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxvn

shall strive unto one's life's end) . On my departure,
I begged Apollon Nikolayevitch to be a friend to you,
and assist you with good counsel. Pasha, he is the
rarest of rare men, mark that. I have known him
now for twenty years. He will alwaj^s be able to
direct you wisely. Above all things, you must be
frank and upright in your intercourse with him. I
have known for some time that you have been
offered a place, and are still offered it. I advise you
to take that place. I believe that a position with a
police-magistrate would be incomparably more useful
for you. You could in that way obtain a practical
acquaintance with judicial matters, you could develop
yourself, and accumulate much knowledge. But I
have no confidence in you. One has to work very
hard in such a post, and then it's very important to
know what sort of man you would be likely to go to.
If to a good sort, well and good; but if to a bad, as
bad as possible. Moreover, a provincial town like
Ladoga is very dangerous at your age, particularly
such a dull and inferior sort of place. Of course, the
social relations in the railway-service are very bad.
But I am of opinion that even in the highest
Government-offices the social side is rotten-bad;
only there, more refined manners prevail. For this
reason, Petersburg would be better, for there one can
find suitable society. But anyhow, you must take
this place. As regards the danger of your falling
into evil ways, I have some confidence in you there.
You can't possibly have forgotten your dead father
and mother. Realize that I don't advise you to take
this place (nor on account of the salary either) because
in that way you will cease to be a charge on me.
Know that, though I have not a farthing to spare, I
shall support you to my life's end, whatever age you
may be. I give you this advice for the sake of work

JET. 46] CHAMPAGNE 129

alone, for work is the most important of all things.
Anna Grigorovna loves you as I do. Write me fully
about everything.

XXXVIII

To his Sister Vera, and his Brother-in-Law
Alexander Pavlovitch Ivanov

GENEVA,
January i [13}, 1868.

MY DEAR AND PRECIOUS ALEXANDER PAVLOVITCH

AND VERA MICHAILOVNA !
First of all, I embrace you, congratulate you on
the New Year, and wish you of course most heartily
everything of the best ! Yesterday Anna Grigorovna
surprised me with a quarter-bottle of champagne,
which, at exactly half-past ten o'clock in the evening,
when it was striking twelve in Moscow, she placed on
our tea-table; we clinked glasses, and drank to the
health of all our dear ones. Who are dearer to me
(and to Anna Grigorovna, her nearest relatives ex-
cepted) than you and your children ? Besides you,
only Fedya 1 and his family, and Pasha; there stand
written all my precious ones, for whom I care. I
have received both your letters, the last and the
November one; forgive my not having answered till
now. I love you always, and think of you no less
than hitherto. But I have been continually in such
a state of stress and dissatisfaction that I put off
answering to a better period; and indeed, of late, I
have (literally) not had a single free hour. I have
been working all the time writing, and then destroy-
ing what I had written; not until the end of December
was I able to send the first part of my novel 2 to

1 Dostoevsky's nephew, son of his brother Michael.
3 " The Idiot."

9

130 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxvm

the Romsky Viestnik. They wanted it for the
January number, and I am afraid the MS. arrived
too late.

And now, for me, nearly everything depends on
this work: my existence, daily bread, and my whole
future. I have had huge advances of money from
the Roussky Viestnik nearly 4,500 roubles; then, in
Petersburg, I still have bills to meet to the amount
of at least 3,000; and at the same time I must exist
somehow or other and at such a period ! Therefore
I stake all my hopes on the novel; I shall have to
work incessantly, scarcely rising from my desk, for
the next four months. I am so very much behind-
hand, because I have rejected nearly all that I've
written up to the present. The book will, by
the Roussky Viestnik's rates, bring me in about
6,000 roubles. Now I've had 4,500 in advance;
consequently I have only 1,500 to get. If it really
succeeds, I shall, in September, sell (as I am accus-
tomed always to do) the second edition for about
3,000 roubles. In that way I shall manage to live,
pay off, in September, about 1,500 roubles of my
debts, and come back to Russia. Thus everything
depends on my work now : my whole future and my
whole present; and if the book is in any way good,
I shall get further credit from the Viestnik in
September. Now I'll tell you about our life and
circumstances up to the present.

In that respect, it's all monotonous enough; while
we are in Geneva, every day resembles every other.
I write, and Anna Grigorovna works at the outfit
for the little person whom we are expecting, or does
shorthand for me when I need her help. She bears
her condition excellently (though lately she has not
been quite so well) ; our life suits her admirably, and
she only longs for her Mama. Our seclusion is to

JBT. 46] LIFE AT GENEVA 131

me personally of great value; without it I could not
have worked at all. But, all the same, Geneva,
except for the view of Mont Blanc, the lake, and the
River Rhone that flows from it, is mightily tedious.
I knew that before ; but circumstances arranged
themselves in such a way that in our situation we
could find no other abode for the winter than just
this Geneva, whither we came by chance in Septem-
ber. In Paris, for instance, the winter is much colder,
and wood ten times dearer, as everything is. We
really wanted to go to Italy that is to Milan, of
course (not farther south), where the winter climate
is incomparably milder; while the town, with its
Cathedral, theatre, and galleries, is much more
attractive. But in the first place, all Europe, and
particularly Italy, was at that very time threatened
with a campaign; and for a woman with child to
find herself in the middle of a campaign would have
been far from pleasant. Secondly, it was eminently
desirable that we should be able to render ourselves
intelligible to the doctor and the midwife, and we do
not know Italian. Germany was out of our way, nor
did we much desire to return there. Geneva is, at
any rate, a cultivated town with libraries, and many
doctors, etc., who all speak French. We had not, to
be sure, guessed that it would be so dull here, nor
that there are periodical winds (called bises), which
come over the mountains, bringing with them the
chill of the eternal ice. In our first abode we suffered
much; the houses here are shockingly built; instead
of stoves there are only fireplaces, and there are no
double windows. So all day long one has to keep
burning wood in the fireplace (wood is very expen-
sive here also, though Switzerland is the only land of
Western Europe where wood is really abundant)
and one might as well be trying to warm the yard

132 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxvm

outside. In my room it was often only six and even
five degrees above zero; in the others it sometimes
happened that the water in the jug froze at night.
But for the last month or so, we've been in a new
house. Two of the rooms are very good, and one of
them is so warm that one can live and work comfort-
ably in it. With us in Geneva the temperature never
fell below eight degrees; in Florence it was ten
degrees above, and at Montpellier in France, on the
Mediterranean Sea, farther south than Geneva, it
was fifteen above.

I haven't written to Petersburg for a long time,
and I scarcely ever hear from them. I am much
perturbed by the thought that Fedya and Pasha need
money, which must be sent them as soon as may be.
But I can't possibly expect any large sum from the
Roussky Viestnik until I deliver the second part of the
novel, which won't be, at earliest, for three weeks;
for I have already had too much money in advance,
and have only worked off about 1,000 roubles; this
worries me so that I often can't sleep at night.
Fedya can't manage without extra help, and Pasha
must have his money regularly. I live on the
hundred roubles that the Viestnik sends me monthly.
And soon I too shall need much more than that.
At the end of February (by the Style here) Anna
Grigorovna will be a mother, and for that occasion
I must absolutely have money, and a margin for
one can't calculate with any certainty beforehand
how much one will need. How goes it with you ?
Your letters are real treats to me, and I wish I could
go to Moscow just to see you all. But, once more,
my future depends on my work. I beg you to write
me most fully about yourselves and the children.
By-the-bye, I was greatly vexed, Veryotchka, by your
letter in November, saying that you want to get a

ST. 46] NO FRENCH GOVERNESS ! 133

Frenchwoman for your children. Why ? To what
end ? On account of the accent ? From a French-
woman and even from a French tutor, one can't
possibly (I know it by my own experience) acquire
the French tongue in all its subtleties. One can
acquire it only by firmly resolving to do so; and
even then, perfectly to obtain the accent, one needs an
extraordinarily strong will. I consider the " accent "
superfluous. Believe me, dear Veryotchka, by the
time your children are grown-up, French will no
longer be spoken in our drawing-rooms. Even to-day,
it has often a most absurd effect. It is a different
matter to be able to understand and read a language.
Then, if one's travelling, and it's necessary, one can
make shift to speak it; but otherwise it's quite
enough to understand and read it. What is the
Frenchwoman going to talk to the children about ?
Nothing but tomfoolery; and affected as she is, and
powerful as she'll be, she'll infect them with her
vulgar, corrupt, ridiculous, and imbecile code of
manners, and her distorted notions about religion
and society. It's a pleasure now to observe your
children. The tone in your house is unconstrained
and frank; everything bears the stamp of happy,
tranquil family-life. The Frenchwoman will intro-
duce a new and evil French element. While of the
expense I need not speak.

Yet another remark: If people want to acquire a
correct French accent nowadays, they must adopt
the guttural Parisian mode, which is very ugly and
offensive to the ear. This accent is modern, and has
been fashionable in Paris only within the last twenty-
five years at most. Our tutors and governesses don't
yet dare to introduce it among us. Therefore your
children would not acquire this " correct pronuncia-
tion." But I have written too much about the

134 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxix

governess. I am now about to take a rest of two
days, and then set to work again. The state of my
health has remarkably improved since the autumn.
Sometimes I don't have a single attack for seven
weeks at a stretch. And yet I am occupied in most
exacting brain-work. I can't understand how it has
come to pass, but I'm very glad of it.

Till next time, my dear and precious ones. I
kiss and embrace you, wish you heartily, as brother
and friend, all that is best, and beg you too not
to forget us. My address is still Geneva. Perhaps
at the end of April we may go over Mont C >nis into
Italy, to Milan and Lake Como. That v ill be a
real Paradise ! Everything depends, however, on
my work. Wish me success.

Your
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

XXXIX

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

GENEVA,
January i [13], 1868.

MY DEAR PRECIOUS SONETCHKA,

Despite your request I have not even yet
answered your letter, and give you herewith my
word of honour that henceforth I will write regularly
every month. In my letter to Alexander Pavlovitch
I explained, as well as I could, the reason for my
silence. All the time I was in such a bad temper
and such continuous anxiety, that I felt I needed to
shut myself into myself, and bear my woe in solitude.
In those days I should have found it hard to write to
you what could I have said ? Should I have talked
of my bad temper ? (It would certainly iiave found

*T. 46] "THE IDIOT" 135

expression, anyhow, in my letter.) But this non-
sense is irrelevant. My position was most difficult.
On my work hangs my whole future. I have not
only had an advance of 4,500 roubles from the
Viestnik, but have also promised on my word of
honour, and reiterated that promise in every letter,
that the novel should really be written. But directly
before dispatching the finished MS. to the office, I
found myself obliged to destroy the greater part of it,
for I was no longer pleased with it and if one is
displeased with one's work, it can't possibly be good.
So I destroyed the greater part of what I had written.
Yet on this novel, and on the payment of my debts,
depended my whole present and future. Three
weeks ago (December 18 by the Style here) I attacked
another novel, and am now working day and night.
The idea of the book is the old one which I always
have so greatly liked; but it is so difficult that
hitherto I never have had the courage to carry it out ;
and if I'm setting to work at it now, it's only because
I'm in a desperate plight. The basic idea is the
representation of a truly perfect and noble man. And
this is more difficult than anything else in the world,
particularly nowadays. All writers, not ours alone
but foreigners also, who have sought to represent
Absolute Beauty, were unequal to the task, for it is
an infinitely difficult one. The beautiful is the ideal ;
but ideals, with us as in civilized Europe, have long
been wavering. There is in the world only one figure
of absolute beauty: Christ. That infinitely lovely
figure is, as a matter of course, an infinite marvel
(the whole Gospel of St. John is full of this thought :
John sees the wonder of the Incarnation, the visible
apparition of the Beautiful). I have gone too far
in my explanation. I will only say further that of
all the noble figures in Christian literature, I reckon

136 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [xxxix

Don Quixote as the most perfect. But Don Quixote
is noble only by being at the same time comic. And
Dickens's Pickwickians (they were certainly much
weaker than Don Quixote, but still it's a powerful
work) are comic, and this it is which gives them
their great value. The reader feels sympathy and
compassion with the Beautiful, derided and un-
conscious of its own worth. The secret of humour
consists precisely in this art of wakening the reader's
sympathy. Jean Valjean 1 is likewise a remarkable
attempt, but he awakens sympathy only by his
terrible fate and the injustice of society towards him.
I have not yet found anything similar to that, any-
thing so positive, and therefore I fear that the book
may be a " positive " failure. Single details will
perhaps come out not badly. But I fear that the
novel may be tiresome. It is to be very extensive.
The first part I wrote in twenty-three days, and have
lately sent off. This first part has no action at all.
It is confessedly only a prologue. It is right that it
should not compromise the whole work in any way,
but it illuminates nothing, and poses no problem.
My sole aim is to awake at least such interest in the
reader as will make him read the second part. That
second part I am beginning to-day, and shall finish in
a month. (I have always worked as quickly as that.)
I believe that it will be stronger and more significant
than the first part. Well, dear, wish me luck ! The
novel is called "The Idiot," and is dedicated to
you, Sofia Alexandrovna. My dear, I wish that the
book may turn out worthy of that dedication. At
any rate, I am not called upon to judge my own
work, least of all in the excited state in which I
now am.

My health is most satisfactory, and I can bear well
1 Hero of Hugo's " Les Misdrables."

JET. 46] LIFE IN GENEVA 137

even the hardest work; but with regard to Anna
Grigorovna's condition, I am now anticipating a
difficult time. I shall work for four months longer,
and hope then to be able to go to Italy. Solitude is
essential to me just now. Fedya and Pasha make
me really sad. I am writing to Fedya by this post.
Life abroad is on the whole very troublesome, and I
long terribly for Russia. Anna Grigorovna and I live
quite solitary here. My life passes thus: I get up
late, light the fire (it is fearfully cold), we drink
coffee, and then I go to work. About four, I go to
a restaurant, where I dine for two francs (with wine).
Anna Grigorovna prefers to dine at home. After
dinner I go to a cafe, drink coffee, and read the
Moskovskoie Viedomosti (Moscow News) and the Golos 1
from A to Z. For exercise I walk half-an-hour in the
streets, and then betake myself to home and work.
I light the fire, we drink coffee, and I set to again.
"Anna Grigorovna declares that she's immensely happy.

Geneva is a dull, gloomy, Protestant, stupid town
with a frightful climate, but very well suited for
work.

I don't suppose I shall be able to get back to Russia
at all before September alas, my dear ! As soon as
I do, I shall hasten to embrace you. I still dally
with the thought of starting a magazine after my
return. But of course all depends upon the success
of my present novel. Only think: I am working so
furiously, and yet I don't know whether the MS. will
arrive in time for the January number or not. That
would be very unpleasant for me !

I embrace and kiss you. Your ever friendly
inclined

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

1 Tht Moscow Voice, an important paper.

138 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XL

XL

To his Stepson, P. A. Issayev

GENEVA,
February 19 [March 3], 1868.

Don't reproach me and don't be angry with me,
my ever dear Pasha, because I send Emilie Fyodor-
ovna 1 a hundred roubles, and you only fifty. You
are alone, my dear boy, and she is not alone. And
you wrote yourself, indeed, that she needed as much
as that. And then, she has to support her Fedya;
he is at work, and I wish him luck. I love him
dearly. I would willingly give all I have, but I have
nothing. I must tell you that it is a great joy to me
that you have taken that place, and begun to work.
I respect you very much for it, Pasha. It was
noble of you; the position is not distinguished, but
you are still young, and can wait. But remember
that you can always count on me. So long as I live,
I shall regard you as my dear son. I swore to your
mother, the night before she died, that I would never
forsake you. When you were still a little child, I
used to call you my son. How could I, then, forsake
you and forget you ? When I married again, you
threw out hints that your position would now be a
different one; I never answered them, because the
idea wounded me deeply; I may confess that to you
now. Know once for all that you will always be my
son, my eldest son ; and not duty bids me say so, but
my heart. If I have often scolded you, and been
cross to you, that was only my evil disposition; I
love you as I have seldom loved anyone. When
I come back to Petersburg some day, I shall do all I

1 His brother Michael's widow.

JET. 46] HIS STEPSON 139

can to find you a better place; I will also help you
with money as long as I live, and have anything at
all of my own. Your saying that you don't feel well
has alarmed me much. Write to me directly you
receive this, if only a few lines. Send the letter
unstamped; you must not have any unnecessary
expenses. My address is still the same. I set all
my hopes on the new novel. If it succeeds, I shall
sell the second edition, pay my debts, and return to
Russia. I may also get an advance from the paper.
But I fear that the novel will miss fire. I greatly

like the idea, but the execution ! The novel is

called " The Idiot "; the first part has already been
printed in the Roussky Viestnik. Perhaps you've read
it ? The great thing is that it should come off then
all will be well. I work day and night; our life is
monotonous. Geneva is a terribly dull town. I
froze through the whole winter; but now we are
having real spring weather. Ten degrees above
Reaumur. My health is neither good nor bad. I
suffer from incessant poverty. We live on a few
groschen, and have pawned everything. Anna Gri-
gorovna may be confined at any moment. I expect
it to happen to-night. I am in great anxiety, but
must work uninterruptedly. Judge for yourself
whether I can answer all your letters punctually.
Tell me fully about yourself. Take care of your
health.

XLI

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

GENEVA,

May 1 8 [30], 1868.

I thank you for your letter, my dear Apollon
Nikolayevitch, and for not being angry with me and

140 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLI

so breaking off our correspondence. I was always
convinced, in the depths of my soul, that Apollon
Nikolayevitch would never do such a thing as that.

My Sonia is dead; we buried her three days ago.
Two hours before her death, I did not know that she
was to die. The doctor told us, three hours before
she died, that things were going better and she would
live. She was only a week ill; she died of inflam-
mation of the lungs.

Ah, my dear Apollon Nikolayevitch, my love for
my first child was probably most comical; I daresay
I expressed it most comically in my letters to all who
congratulated me. I have doubtless been ridiculous
in everybody's eyes, but to you, to you, I am not
ashamed to say anything. The poor little darling
creature, scarcely three months old, had already, for
me, individuality and character. She was just be-
ginning to know and love me, and always smiled when
I came near. And now they tell me, to console me,
that I shall surely have other children. But where
is Sonia ? where is the little creature for whom I
would, believe me, gladly have suffered death upon
the cross, if she could have remained alive ? I'll
speak of it no more. My wife is crying. The day
after to-morrow we shall say our last good-bye to
the little grave, and go away somewhere. Anna
Nikolayevna 1 is staying with us ; she arrived here
only a week before the little one died.

For the last fortnight, since Sonia's illness, I have
not been able to work. I have written a letter of
apology to Katkov, and in the May number of the
Roussky Viestnik, again only three chapters can ap-
pear. But I hope from now to be able to work day
and night, so that from the June number onward the
novel will appear with some degree of regularity.
1 His wife's mother.

JST. 46] SONIA'S MEMORY 141

thank you for consenting to be godfather to the
little one. She was baptized a week before her
death. . . .

[The second half of the letter is on business only.]

XLII

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

VEVEY,
June 10 [22], 1868.

MY DEAR FRIEND APOLLON NIKOLAYEVITCH,

I know and believe that your sympathy is real
and true. But I have never yet been so profoundly
unhappy as of late. I don't intend to describe my
state to you, but the more time goes by, the more
painful does remembrance become, and the more
clearly does my dead Sonia's image stand before me.
There are moments in which I can hardly bear it.
She already knew me; when I was leaving the house
on the day she died, just to read the papers, and
without the least idea that she would be dead in two
hours, she followed so attentively all my movements,
and looked at me with such eyes that even at this
moment I can see them, and the memory grows
livelier every day. I shall never forget her ; my grief
will never come to an end. And if I ever should
have another child, I don't know, truly, how I shall be
able to love it I don't know where the love could
come from. I want only Sonia. I can't realize in
the least that she is no more, and that I am never to
see her again. . . .

[He speaks of his wife's condition and of business
matters.]

I have grown quite stupid from sheer hard work,
and my head feels as if it were in pieces. I await

142 DOSTOEVSKI'S LETTERS [XLII

your letters always as one awaits Heaven. What is
there more precious than a voice from Russia, the
voice of my friend ? I have nothing to tell you, no
news of any kind, I get duller and stupider every
day that I'm here, and yet I daren't do anything until
the novel's finished. Then, however, I intend in any
event to go back to Russia. To get the book done,
I must sit at my desk for at least eight hours daily.
I have now half worked off my debt to Katkov. I
shall work off the rest. Write to me, my friend
write, for Christ's sake. . . .

In the four chapters that you will read in the June
number (perhaps there may be only three, for the
fourth probably arrived too late), I have depicted
some types of the modern Positivist among the highly
" extreme " young men. I know that I have presented
them truthfully (for I understand the gentry from
experience; no one but me has thus studied and
observed them), and I know too that everyone will
abuse me and say: " Nonsensical, naive, stupid, and
false."

XLIII
To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

MILAN,
October 7 [19], 1868.

Above all, I must declare that I never have been
in the least degree offended with you, and I say it
sincerely and honestly; on the contrary I supposed
that you were angry with me for some reason or
another. In the first place, you had ceased to write
to me; though every one of your letters is to me,
here, a great event a breath from Russia, a real
festival. But how could you ever have thought that

F. M. DOSTOKVSKY.

T. 47] QUANTITY AND QUALITY 143

I considered myself offended by anything you may
have written ? No; my heart is not like that. And
moreover, think of this: twenty-two years ago (it
was at Bielinsky's, do you remember ?) I made your
acquaintance. Since then life has properly rattled
me about, and sometimes "given me amazing surprises;
and in short and in fine I have at the present moment
no one but you: you are the only man on whose
heart and disposition I rely, whom I love, and whose
thoughts and convictions I share. How then should
I not love you, almost as much as I loved my brother
who is dead ? Your letters have always rejoiced and
encouraged me, for I was in dejected mood. My
work, more than anything else, has frightfully weak-
ened and broken me. For almost a year now I have
written three and a half printed sheets every month.
That is very stiff. Also I miss the Russian way of
life; its impressions were always essential to my
work. Finally, though you praise the idea of my
novel, the execution has not hitherto been distin-
guished. I am chiefly distressed by the thought
that if I had got the novel written in a year, and
then had had two or three months to devote to re-
writing and re-touching, it would have been quite a
different thing; I can answer for it. Now, when I
can take a bird's-eye view, as it were, of the whole,
I see that very clearly. . . .

I have become totally alienated from your way of
life, though my whole heart is with you ; that is why
your letters are like heavenly manna to me. The
tidings of the new paper 1 greatly rejoiced me. . . .
What more can Nikolay Nikolayevitch 2 now desire ?
The chief point is that he should be absolute master
of the paper. It is very desirable that it be edited

1 The allusion is to Sarya (Morning Red) .
* Strachov.

144 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLIII

in the Russian spirit, as we both conceive it, if it
is not to become purely Slavophil. I hold, my friend,
that it is no part of our duty to woo the Slavs too
ardently. They must come to us of their own accord.
After the Pan-Slavist Congress at Moscow, some
individual Slavs made insolent mock of the Russians,
because they had taken on themselves to lead others,
and even aspired to dominate them, while they
themselves had so little national consciousness, and
so on. Believe me: many Slavs, for instance those
in Prague, judge us from a frankly Western, from a
French or German, point of view; I daresay they
wonder that our Slavophils trouble themselves so
little about the generally accepted formulas of West-
European civilization. Thus we have no motive at
all for running after them and paying court. It is a
different thing for us merely to study them; we
could then help them in time of need ; but we should
not pursue them with fraternal sentiment, although
we must very assuredly regard them as brothers and
treat them so. I hope too that Strachov will give
the paper a definite political tone, to say nothing at
all of national consciousness. National consciousness
is our weak spot; it lacks more than anything else.
In every case, Strachov will make a brilliant thing
of it, and I look forward to the great delight that his
articles will afford me ; I have read nothing of his
since the failure of the Epoch, ...

The book about which you write I had shortly
before read, 1 and I must confess that it enraged me
terribly. I can imagine nothing more impudent.
Of course one should spit upon such stuff, and so I
was ready to do at first. But I am oppressed by the

1 He is speaking of the novel " Les Secrets du Palais des
Tsars," which deals with the Court of Nicholas I. In this
book Dostoevsky and his wife appear.

XT. 47] IN ARREARS 145

thought that if I don't protest against it, I shall thus
seem, as it were, to acknowledge the vile fabrication.
Only, where is one to protest ? In the Nord ? But
I can't write French well, and I should like to proceed
with all tact. I have an idea of going to Florence,
and there getting advice from the Russian Consulate.
Of course that is not the only reason why I wish to
go to Florence. . . .

XLIV

To Ms Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

MILAN,
October 26 [November 7], 1868.

MY DEAR GOOD FRIEND SONETCHKA,

It is a very long time since I have written to
you. I can say only one thing in excuse : I am still
busy with my novel. Believe me, dear, I literally
toil day and night; if I am not precisely writing, I
am walking up and down the room, smoking and
thinking of my work. I can scarcely myself believe
that I can't find a free hour in which to write to you.
But it really is so. Of myself and my life I can give
you the following information: I live on the best of
friendly terms with my wife. She is patient, and
my interests are more important to her than aught
else; but I see that she is pining for her friends
and relations in Russia. This often grieves me, but
my position is still so perplexed that for the next
few months we dare not make any plans at all.
My affairs have turned out sadly worse than I had
calculated.

In two months, you see, the year will be at an end,
but of the four parts of my novel only three are
finished; the fourth anO longest I have not even

10

146 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLIV

begun. And as it is quite impossible (working un-
interruptedly through the whole year) to write more
than three and a half sheets a month (I say this from
actual experience), I shall be in arrears by six sheets
that is, the end of the novel cannot appear in the
December number of the Roussky Viestnik. This
puts me in a most awkward and painful position; in
the first place, I cause the staff much inconvenience,
and even loss, for they will have to give their sub-
scribers the conclusion of the novel as a supplement
(which, quite apart from anything else, is attended
with great expense); in the second place, I myself
lose thereby 900 roubles, for I proposed to the staff
that I should indemnify them by claiming no fee for
the six sheets by which I am in arrears. Finally, this
fourth part, and particularly its conclusion, are the
most important things in the whole book, which was,
strictly speaking, conceived and written for its con-
clusion alone.

Of our personal life I'll tell you as follows. After
we had buried Sonia in Geneva, we went, as you
already know, to Vevey. Anna Grigorovna's mother
came to her, and stayed with us a long time. In
tiny, picturesque Vevey we lived like hermits, our
only pastime being many mountain-walks. Of the
beauty of the scenery I'll say nothing at all; it's like
a dream; yet Vevey is most enervating: all the
doctors in the world know this, but I did not.

I suffered much from epileptic and other nervous
attacks. My wife was ill too. So we crossed the
Simplon (the most ardent imagination could not
depict the beauty of the Simplon Pass) into Italy,
and settled down in Milan; our means prevented
us from going farther. (During the last year and a
half I have had so many advances from the Roussky
Viestnik that I must now work at full pressure to

JET. 47] HOMESICK 147

get matters square; indeed, they still send me regu-
larly comparatively large sums, yet I often ^find it
very difficult to manage; and for a long time I've
sent nothing to Petersburg, either to Pasha or Emilie
Fyodorovna, which greatly troubles me.)

In Milan it certainly rains a good deal, but the
climate suits me extraordinarily well. Yet it is said
that fits are highly prevalent at Milan; perhaps I
shall be spared one, nevertheless. Living in Milan
is very expensive. It is a big, important town, but
not very picturesque, and somewhat un-Italian. In
the neighbourhood, that is, half-an-hour's railway
journey from Milan, lies the exquisite Lake of Como,
but I have not yet been there this time. The only
" sight " in the town is the famous Duomo; it is of
marble, gigantic, Gothic, filigree-like, fantastic as a
dream. Its interior is amazingly fine. At the end
of November, I mean to move to Florence, for there
are Russian papers there, and perhaps living may be
cheaper. On the way I shall make a detour to Venice
(so as to show it to my wife), which will cost me about
a hundred francs.

Now I have given you in few words a full account
of myself. I am very heavy-hearted; homesick, and
uncertain of my position; my debts, etc., deject me
terribly. And besides I have been so alienated from
Russian life that I find it difficult, lacking fresh
Russian impressions as I do, to write anything at all :
only think for six months I haven't seen a single
Russian newspaper. And I still have the fourth part
of my novel to do, and it will take about four months
more. Enough of me. Write fully of all your
affairs, of your external circumstances, and of your
state of mind. Embrace your Mama from me; I
often think of her, and pray for her every day. I
frequently recall our past days together. Kiss your

I4 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS ' [XLIV

Missenika for me. Tell me your right address.
Write to me at Milan, poste restante.

Even if I should have left Milan, and be in Florence
or Venice (which is recommended me for the winter),
I shall get your letters addressed to Milan ; before my
departure I shall give my new address to the post-
office here. As soon as I go to another town, I'll
let you know without delay. My wife sends greeting
and kisses. We both long for our home. I have
been told that after New Year, a new journal is to
appear in Petersburg. The publisher is Kachpirev;
the editor my friend Strachov. They have asked me
to contribute. The undertaking seems to be quite
serious and very promising. Maikov writes of it
in great delight.

Do read, in the September number of the Roussky
Viestnik, the article on the British Association.

I kiss and embrace you, I press you to my heart.
Your friend and brother,

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

XLV

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

FLORENCE,
December n [23], 1868.

I have had a letter from Strachov too; he tells me
a lot of literary news. Particularly do I rejoice to
hear of Danilevsky's article, "Europe and Russia," 1

1 The articles by Danilevsky, which appeared in Sarya,
were afterwards collected under the title of " Russia and
Europe." Danilevsky aimed at giving a scientific basis
to the Slavophil Utopias, and taught, among other things,
that Russia must place herself at the head of a Pan-Slavist
Federation, whose centre should be in Constantinople, un-
conquered yet, but to be conquered.

JST. 47] PROJECTS 149

which Strachov says is splendid. I must confess that
I have heard nothing of Danilevsky since the year
1849, though I've often thought of him. What a
frenzied Fourierist he was at one time; and now
that same Fourierist has turned himself back into
a Russian who loves his native soil and customs !
Thus may one know the people who really matter \ . . .
But, on the other hand, I'll never agree with the
view of the dead Apollon Grigoryev, that Bielinsky
also would have ended by becoming a Slavophil.
No; with Bielinsky that was quite out of the
question. He was, in his day, a remarkable writer,
but could not possibly have developed any further.
Rather, he would have ended as adjutant to some
leader of the Women's Rights movement over here,
and have forgotten his Russian while learning no
German. Do you know what the new Russians are
like ? Well, for example, look at the moujik, the
" sectarian " of the time of Paul the Prussian, 1 about
whom there's an article in the June number of the
Roussky Viestnik. If he's not precisely typical of the
coming Russian, he is undoubtedly one of the Russians
of the future.

*****

Those cursed creditors will kill me to a certainty.
It was stupid of me to run away to foreign lands;
assuredly 'twere better to have stayed at home and
let myself be put in the debtor's prison. If I could
only treat with them from here ! But that can't be,
for my personal presence is indispensable. I speak of
this, because at the moment I am meditating two and
even three publishing ventures which will demand the
labour of an ox to carry out, but must inevitably
br ing in money. I have often had luck with similar
projects.
1 Paul I., so called because of his love for all things German.

150 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLV

Now here's what I propose :

i. A long novel entitled " Atheism " (but for God's
sake, let this be entirely between ourselves) ; before
I attack it, I shall have to read a whole library
of atheistic works by Catholic and Orthodox-Greek
writers. Even in the most favourable circumstances
it can't be ready for two years. I have my principal
figure ready in my mind. A Russian of our class,
getting on in years, not particularly cultured, though
not uncultured either, and of a certain degree of social
importance, loses quite suddenly, in ripe age, his belief
in God. His whole life long he has been wholly
taken up by his work, has never dreamed of escaping
from the rut, and up to his forty-fifth year, has distin-
guished himself in no wise. (The working-out will
be pure psychology: profound in feeling, human,
and thoroughly Russian.) The loss of faith has a
colossal effect on him (the treatment of the story,
and the environment, are both largely conceived).
He tries to attach himself to the younger generation
the atheists, Slavs, Occidentalists, the Russian
Sectarians and Anchorites, the mystics: amongst
others he comes across a Polish Jesuit; thence he
descends to the abysses of the Chlysty-sect; 1 and
finds at last salvation in Russian soil, the Russian
Saviour, and the Russian God. (For heaven's sake,
don't speak of this to anyone; when I have written
this last novel, I shall be ready to die, for I shall have
uttered therein my whole heart's burden.) My dear
friend, I have a totally different conception of truth
and realism from that of our " realists " and critics.
My God ! If one could but tell categorically all that
we Russians have gone through during the last ten
years in the way of spiritual development, all the
realists would shriek that it was pure fantasy ! And
1 A flagellant sect still widely spread over Russia.

JET. 47] THE " REALISTS " 151

yet it would be pure realism ! It is the one true,
deep realism ; theirs is altogether too superficial. Is
not the figure of Lyubim Torzov, 1 for instance, at
bottom hideously unmeaning ? Yet it's the boldest
thing they've produced. And they call that pro-
found realism ! With such realism, one couldn't
show so much as the hundredth part of the true facts.
But our idealists have actually predicted many of the
actual facts really, that has been done. My dear
fellow, don't laugh at my conceit; for I'm like Paul:
" Nobody praises me, so I'll praise myself."

In the meantime I've got to live somehow. I don't
mean to hurry my " Atheism " on to the market
(I have such lots to say therein about Catholicism
and Jesuitry, as compared with Orthodoxy). More-
over, I have an idea for a tolerably lengthy novel of
about twelve sheets ; it strikes me as most attractive.
And I've another plan besides. Which shall I decide
on, and to whom shall I offer my work ? To the
Sarya ? But I always demand payment in advance ;
and perhaps on the Sarya they won't agree to that ?

[Here follow some purely business details.]

XLVI

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

FLORENCE,
January 25 [February 6], 1869.

MY DEAR, GOOD, AND VALUED FRIEND SONETCHKA,

I did not at once answer your last letter
(undated), and nearly died of conscience pangs
therefor, because I love you very much. But it was
not my fault, and it shall be different in future.

1 Hero of a drama by Ostrovsky

152 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVI

Regularity in our correspondence henceforth depends
wholly on you ; I shall from now onward answer each
of your letters the same day I receive it ; but as every
letter from Russia is now an event to me, and deeply
moves me (yours always in the most delightful sense),
do write, if you love me, as often as you possibly can.
I have not answered you for so long, because I put
off all business and even the most important letters
until I had finished the novel. Now it is done at last.
I worked at the concluding chapters by day and by
night, in the deepest anxiety and amid great torment
of mind. A month ago I wrote to the Roussky
Viestnik, asking them to postpone the appearance of
the December number for a little while, and so make
it possible for me to bring out the conclusion of my
book this year. I swore that I would deliver the last
lines by the I5th of January (by our Style). But
what happened ? I had two attacks, and therefore
was obliged to overstep by ten days the term which
I had myself fixed. They can only to-day (January 25)
have received the two last chapters. You can easily
imagine how much perturbed I have been by the
thought that they might lose patience, and, as they
had not received the end by the I5th, might let the
number appear without the novel ! That would be
terrible for me. In any case, they must be infuriated ;
I was in dire need and had to write to Katkov for
money.

The climate of Florence is perhaps even more
unfavourable to my health than that of Milan or
Vevey; the epileptic attacks return more frequently.
Two, with an interval of six days, have brought about
this delay of ten days. Besides, it rains too much in
Florence; though in fine weather it is real Paradise
here. One can imagine nothing lovelier than this
sky, this air, and this light. For a fortnight it was

MT. 47] WORSE THAN DEPORTATION 153

somewhat cool, and as the houses here are poorly
equipped, we froze during that fortnight like mice in
a cellar. But now I have my work behind me, and
am free; this work, which took a year, carried me
away so completely that I have not yet been able to
collect my thoughts. The future is to me an enigma;
I don't even yet know what I shall decide to do.
However, I shall have to make up my mind to some-
thing. In three months, we shall have been exactly
two years abroad. In my opinion, it is worse than
deportation to Siberia. I mean that quite seriously;
I'm not exaggerating. I cannot understand the
Russians abroad. Even though there is a wonderful
sky here, and though there are as, for example,
in Florence literally unimaginable and incredible
marvels of art, there are lacking many advantages
which even in Siberia, as soon as I left the prison,
made themselves evident to me: I mean, especially,
home and the Russians, without which and whom
I cannot live. Perhaps you may experience this
yourself one day, and then you'll see that I don't
exaggerate in the least. And yet my immediate
future is still hidden from me. My original positive
plan has for the moment broken down. (I say
positive, but naturally all my plans, like those of any
man who possesses no capital and lives only by his
own toil, are associated with risks, and dependent on
many attendant circumstances.) I hope that I shall
succeed in bettering my finances by the second edition
of the novel, and then returning to Russia; but I'm
dissatisfied with the book, for I haven't said a tenth
part of what I wanted to say. Nevertheless, I don't
repudiate it, and to this day I love the plan that
miscarried.

But in fact the book is not showy enough for the
public taste ; the second edition will therefore, even

154 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVI

If it comes off at all, bring in so little that I can't
reckon on it for any new arrangements. While I'm
here in this foreign land, besides, I know nothing of
what reception the book had in Russia. Just at first
I was sent some cuttings, full of ecstatic praise. But
lately never a word. The worst of it is that I don't
know anything, either, about the views of the Roussky
Viestnik people. Whenever I've asked them for
money, they've sent it by return of post, from which I
am inclined to draw a favourable conclusion. But I
may be mistaken. Now Maikov and Strachov write
from Petersburg that a new journal, Sarya, has been
started, with Strachov as editor; they sent me the
first number, and begged for my collaboration. I
promised it, but am hindered by my long connection
with the Roussky Viestnik (it is always better to stay
with the same paper), and by the fact that Katkov
gave me an advance of 3,000 roubles before I came
abroad. And I owe the editorial staff a good deal
besides, for (together with the first three thousand)
I have gradually borrowed in all about seven thousand
roubles ; so that on that ground alone I can at present
work for no other paper but the Roussky Viestnik.

On their answer to my request for more money all
now depends. But even if they answer favourably,
my position will remain most uncertain. I must at
all costs get back to Russia; for here I am losing all
power to write, not having the, to me, essential
material at hand, that is to say, Russian actualities
(from which I draw my ideas) and Russian people.
Every moment I am obliged to look up something,
or make inquiries about something, and know not
where to turn for it. I am now dallying with the
idea of a gigantic novel, which in any event, even
should it miscarry with me, must be very effective by
reason of its theme alone. That theme is Atheism

XT. 47] A GIGANTIC IDEA 155

(it is not an indictment of the now prevalent con-
victions, but something quite different: a real story).
What it has to do is to take the reader captive even
against his will. Of course I shall have to study hard
for it. Two or three important characters I have
already got into extraordinary perspective, among
others a Catholic enthusiast and priest (something
like St. Francois Xavier). But I can't possibly write
it here. I should most assuredly be able to sell the
second edition of this work, and make much money
thereby ; but when ? Not before two years. (Don't
tell anyone about this idea.) In the meantime I must
write something else, for daily bread. All this is
most depressing. Some change must absolutely take
place in my situation ; but from what quarter is it to
arrive ?

You are right, my dear, when you say that I should
be able to make money much more easily and quickly
in Russia. And as a matter of fact I am now medi-
tating two ideas for publications : one would demand
much work and would entirely preclude all idea of
simultaneous occupation with a novel, but might
bring in much money (of that I have no doubt).
The other is pure compilation and almost mechanical ;
it is an idea for an aa/(y-appearing large and uni-
versally useful volume of about sixty sheets of small
print, which would be widely bought and would come
out every January; this idea I won't as yet disclose,
for it is too " safe " and too valuable; the profits are
beyond doubt; my work would be purely editorial. 1
All the same it would require some ideas, and much
special knowledge. And this work would not prevent
me from doing a novel at the same time. I shall
need collaborators therein, and shall think of you
first of all (I shall need translators too), and of course

i This is his plan for " The Diary of a Writer."

156 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVI

on the understanding that profits shall be shared in
proportion to the work done ; you will earn ten times
as much as you now get for your work.

I can say without boasting that I've already in
the course of my life had many a good literary idea.
I have suggested them to different editors, and to
Krayevsky also and my dead brother; each one that
has been carried out has proved highly lucrative. So
I am building on these latest notions. But the chief
thing is this next big novel. If I don't write it, it
will torment me to death. But I can't write it here.
And neither can I retufin to Russia until I have paid
at least 4,000 roubles of my debts, and have besides
in my possession 3,000 roubles (so as to be able to
exist through the first year) thus, seven thousand
altogether.

But enough of me and my tiresome affairs ! One
way or another, some sort of an end must come, else
I shall die of it all. . . .

Your ever loving

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

P.S. My address is Florence, poste restante. I
hear that an enormous lot of letters get lost.

XLVII

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

FLORENCE,
February 26 [March 10], 1869.

. . . And have you observed the following peculi-
arity of our Russian criticism ? Every outstanding
critic (such as Bielinsky, Grigoryev) first presented
himself to the public under the protection, so to
speak, of some outstanding writer and thence-

XT. 47] RUSSIAN CRITICS 157

forward devoted himself wholly to the interpretation
of that writer, nor ever expressed his ideas save in
the form of a commentary upon that writer's works.
The critics made no concealment of this, and indeed
it appeared to be taken as a matter-of-course. I
mean to say that our critics can only express their
own ideas when they step forth arm-in-arm with
some writer who attracts them. Thus, Bielinsky,
when he passed our whole literature under review,
and even when he wrote his articles on Pushkin,
could only do so by leaning on Gogol, to whom he
had paid honour in his youth. Grigoryev has relied
on his interpretations of Ostrovsky, in championing
whom he made his debut. And you have, as long as
I've known you, had a boundless and instant sym-
pathy for Leo Tolstoy. When I read your article in
the Sarya, I felt, to be sure, an impression of its being
wholly necessary, of your being obliged to begin with
Leo Tolstoy, and an analysis of his last work, 1 before
you could utter your own idea. In the Golos, a
feuilletonist declares that you share Tolstoy's historical
fatalism. That idiotic phrase leaves things precisely
where they were; do tell me how people manage to
come upon such amazing notions and expressions !
What may historical fatalism mean ? Why this
eternal jargon, and why do simple-minded men who
can only see as far as the end of their noses, so deepen
and darken counsel that no one can make out what
they're driving at ? It was evident that that feuille-
tonist had something that he wanted to say; he had
read your article, beyond doubt. What you say in
the passage referring to the battle of Borodino,
expresses the profoundest essence of the Tolstoyan
idea, and of your own reflections thereon. I don't
think you could possibly have spoken with more
1 " War and Peace."

I5 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVII

lucidity. The national Russian idea stands almost
nakedly forth in that passage. Precisely it is what
people have failed to comprehend, and therefore have
designated as fatalism. As regards other details of
the article, I must await the sequel (which I haven't
yet received). At any rate your thoughts are lucid,
logical, definitely conceived, and most admirably
expressed. Certain details, though, I don't entirely
agree in. We could treat these questions quite
otherwise, were we talking to one another, instead of
writing. In any case, I regard you as the only
representative of our criticism with whom the future
will reckon. . . .

I thank you, my kind and much-esteemed Nikolay
Nikolayevitch, for the great interest that you show in
me. My health is as satisfactory as hitherto, and the
attacks are even less violent than in Petersburg.
Lately (that is, till about six weeks ago), I have been
much occupied with the end of my " Idiot." Do
write and give me the opinion you promised on the
book ; I await it eagerly. I have my own idea about
art, and it is this: What most people regard as
fantastic and lacking in universality, / hold to be the
inmost essence of truth. Arid observation of every-
day trivialities I have long ceased to regard as realism
it is quite the reverse. In any newspaper one takes
up, one comes across reports of wholly authentic
facts, which nevertheless strike one as extraordinary.
Our writers regard them as fantastic, and take no
account of them; and yet they are the truth, for
they are facts. But who troubles to observe, record,
describe, them ? They happen every day and every
moment, therefore they are not " exceptional." . . .

The Russians are often unjustly reproached with
beginning all sorts of things, making great plans but
never carrying out even the most trivial of them.

JET. 47] DOSTOEVSKY'S REALISM 159

This view is obsolete and shallow, and false besides.
It is a slander on the Russian national character; and
even in Bielinsky's time it was prevalent. How paltry
and petty is such a way of driving home actualities !
Always the same old story ! In this way, we shall
let all true actuality slip through our fingers. And
who will really delineate the facts, will steep himself
in them ? Of Turgenev's novel I don't wish even to
speak; the devil knows what it may mean ! But is
not my fantastic " Idiot " the very dailiest truth ?
Precisely such characters must exist in those strata of
our society which have divorced themselves from the
soil which actually are becoming fantastic. But I'll
talk of it no more ! In my book much was written
in haste, much is too drawn-out, much has miscarried;
but much, too, is extremely good. I am not defend-
ing the novel, but the idea. Do tell me your view
of it; and, of course, quite frankly. The more you
find fault with me, the higher shall I rate your
honest. . . .

[Thenceforth he writes of the journal Sarya, and
the articles which have been published therein.]

XLVIII

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

FLORENCE,

March 8 [20], 1869.

You have, as I begged you, answered all my letters
regularly by return, my dear and precious friend
Sonetchka. But I have broken my word, and made
you wait more than a fortnight for my answers.
This time I can't even excuse myself by pressure
of work, for all my jobs have long been ready and

i6o DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVIII

delivered. I can explain my silence only by the
depressed state of mind in which I have been.

The Roussky Viestnik did not answer my request for
money for seven weeks (so that I had to wait through
all Lent); only to-day have I received the money,
though I had depicted my desperate situation to the
people there more than two months ago. They write
with many apologies, that they have not been able to
send me the money any sooner, because, as always at
the beginning of the year, they were confronted with
a terrible lot of work that could not be postponed,
and with the accounts. And it is a fact that about
New Year one never can get anything out of them;
it was wont to be so in earlier days, and I can still
remember how in the years 1866 and 1867 they made
me wait whole months for an answer, just as now.
So we've had anything but an easy time of it we
were even in actual distress. If we had not been
able to borrow two hundred francs from an acquaint-
ance, and to get a further hundred from other sources,
we might easily have died of hunger in this foreign
town. But what worried us most was the constant
suspense and uncertainty. In such circumstances, I
could not possibly write to anyone, not even you, my
dear. Evidently the staff, as I gather from their
letter, wish to retain me as a contributor; otherwise
they would not have granted me a further advance.
Indeed I can't complain of Katkov, and am even
grateful to him for the many advances he has made
me. Journals are impoverished nowadays, and
don't usually give any advances ; but in the very be-
ginning, before I even began to write the novel, I had
4,000 roubles from these people. For that reason 1
must not be either angry or disloyal. ... I must
strive even harder than hitherto to make myself
useful to them. You write that people declare the

Ki. 47] THE " ROUSSKY VIESTNIK " 161

magazine has lost ground. Is that really possible ?
I can't at all believe it ; of course not because / am a
contributor, but because the paper is, in my opinion,
the best in Russia, and strikes a really consistent note.
To be sure, it is a little dry; and the literary side is
not always up to the mark (but not oftener than in
the other magazines; all the best works of modern
literature have appeared therein:- " War and Peace,"
" Fathers and Sons," etc., to say nothing of more dis-
tant years ; and the public knows that well) ; critical
articles are rare (but often very remarkable, particu-
larly when it is not a question of so-called fine
literature) ; but then there appear annually, as every
subscriber knows, three or four strikingly able, apt,
individual, and in these days most necessary articles,
such as one finds nowhere else. The public knows
that, too. Therefore I believe that the paper, even
if it is dry and addressed to a particular section of
the public, cannot possibly lose ground.

In the year 1867, Katkov told me, in the presence of
Lyubimov and the editorial secretary, that the paper
had five hundred more subscribers than the year be-
fore, which was to be attributed entirely to the success
of my " Raskolnikov." 1 I hardly think that " The
Idiot " will have obtained fresh subscribers for the
paper; therefore I am doubly glad that, despite the
manifest failure of the story, they still depend on me.
The editors beg me to excuse them for being unable
to bring out the conclusion in the December number,
and propose to send it to subscribers as a supplement.
This is quite peculiarly painful for me. Have you
had the conclusion ? Do write and tell me. I get
the Roussky Viestnik here, however; perhaps the
supplement will come with the February number.

From Petersburg I am told quite frankly that

1 " Crime and Punishment."

ii

162 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVIII

" The Idiot " has certainly many shortcomings, and is
generally regarded as a falling off; but nevertheless
has been followed with great interest by those who
read at all. And that is really the utmost I aimed at.
As to the shortcomings, I perfectly discern them my-
self; I am so vexed by my errors that I should like
to have written a criticism of the book. Strachov
means to send me his article on "The Idiot"; I
know that he is not among my partisans.

I clearly perceive that I am writing only about
myself to-day; but as I am now in that vein, I'll go
on, and I beg you to hear me patiently. On all these
literary matters depends now my whole future, and
my return to Russia. My dearest wish is to embrace
you all, and ever to remain with you; perhaps it will
really come true some day ! I needn't emphasize the
fact, dear friend (and you will be sure to understand
me), that my whole literary activity has embodied for
me but one definite ideal value, but one aim, but one
hope and that I do not strive for fame and money,
but only and solely for the synthesis of my imaginative
and literary ideals, which means that before I die
I desire to speak out, in some work that shall as far
as possible express the whole of what I think.

At the moment I am meditating a novel. It will
be called " Atheism "; I think that I shall succeed in
saying all that I wish to say. But think, my dear:
I cannot possibly write here. I must absolutely be in
Russia, I must see and hear everything, I must take
my own part in Russian life; and besides, the work
would take at least two years. I can't do it here, and
must therefore write something else in the meantime.

On this account, life abroad becomes more unbear-
able to me every day. You must know that I should
have 6,000, or at the very least 5,000, roubles before
I can think of returning to Russia. I reckoned

ST. 47] " I MUST RETURN " 163

originally on the success of " The Idiot." If it had
been equal to that of " Raskolnikov, " I should -*have
had those 5,000 roubles. Now I must set all my
hopes on the future. God knows when I shall be
able to return. But return I must.

You write of Turgenev and the Germans. Tur-
genev, however, has lost all his talent in this foreign
sojourn, as already the Golos has declared. Certainly
no such danger threatens me as that of succumbing
to Germanic influence, for I do not like the Germans.
But I must contrive to live in Russia, for here I shall
lose the last vestiges of my talent and my powers.
I feel that, in all my being. Therefore I must talk
to you still more about those literary matters upon
which depend my present, my future, and my return
to Russia. So I continue.

The Sarya sent me, through Strachov, a second
letter with an official request to contribute. This
invitation comes from Strachov, from the editor
Kachpirev, and some other contributors whom I do
not personally know (Granovsky is not among them) ;
Danilevsky also (whom I have not seen for twenty
years) is of the number this is not the novelist
Danilevsky, but another very remarkable man of the
same name. I perceive that a set of new coadjutors
of great distinction, and of thoroughly Russian and
national tendency, have clustered round this journal.
The first number impressed me deeply with its very
frank and outspoken tone, but especially the two long
articles by Strachov and Danilevsky. You must be
sure to read Strachov's. It is quite certain that you
have never read any critical writing that can compare
with it. Danilevsky 's article, " Europe and Russia,"
is to be very long and run through several numbers.
This Danilevsky is a most unusual phenomenon.
Once upon a time he was a Socialist and Fourierist ;

164 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLVIII

twenty years ago, even, when he was involved in our
affair, he struck me as most remarkable; from his
banishment he returned a thorough Russian and
Nationalist. This article (which I very particularly
recommend to you) is his maiden effort. The paper
seems to me, in general, to have a great future
before it ; but will the contributors continue to pull
together ? Again, Strachov, the real editor, strikes
me as little fitted for a continuous task. But I
may be mistaken. I answered the invitation to col-
laborate thus: I was most willing (I said) to con-
tribute to the paper ; but as my situation obliged me
always to demand payment in advance, which, more-
over, Katkov had always allowed me to do, I now
begged for an advance of a thousand roubles. (It is
not too much: what am I to live on while I'm doing
the work ? I can't possibly ask Katkov for money,
while I'm working for another paper.) I sent this
letter some days ago, and am now awaiting the
answer. All I know is this: if they have money,
they'll send it me at once; but I must reckon with
the possibility that they have none, for I know from
experience what difficulties a new journal has to
encounter in its first year. Even if they do send
me the thousand roubles, that will be no particular
advantage to me. From Katkov I could have got
quite as much, even a great deal more. The only
advantage would be that I should at once have a
large sum of money (which I urgently need) to dis-
pose of; I could then lay aside 400 roubles for Pasha
and Emilie Fyodorovna, and besides that pay a
peculiarly worrying debt that I owe in Petersburg:
it is a debt of honour without any promissory note.
It's only on account of this debt that I've asked for
the advance.
Again, I think it would be to my advantage to

MT. 47] BETWEEN TWO PAPERS 165

appear successfully before the public in another paper;
for then the Roussky Viestnik would esteem me more
highly still. I fear only that the Viestnik people may
be offended, although I never promised them an
exclusive collaboration, and consequently have a right
to work for other papers. But I don't quite like the
fact that I still owe the R.V. about 2,000 roubles,
for I've gradually obtained from them as much as
7,000 roubles. It's just on that ground that they
may take it ill of me. But three months ago, I wrote
and told them that the novel I had promised them
could not appear this year, but only in the course of
next (1870). For the Sarya I want to write a story
which would take about four months to do, and to
which I propose to devote the hours that I had
reserved to myself for walks and recreation after my
fourteen months of labour. But I am afraid that the
affair will get talked about, and that this may injure
me with the Roiissky Viestnik. . . .
Wholly yours,

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

XLIX
To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

FLORENCE,
March 18 [30], 1869.

. . . Danilevsky's article seems to me more and
more important and valuable. It will assuredly be
for many a day the " Household Companion " of every
Russian. Quite apart from its content, the clear lan-
guage, the " popular," lucid manner of presentation,
joined to his uncompromising knowledge of his sub-
ject all combines for success. How I should like to
talk with you about this article with you, precisely

166 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [XLIX

you, Nikolay Nikolayevitch. I should have so much
to say to you on the subject ! The article is so in
harmony with my own views and convictions that
here and there I stand amazed at the identity of our
conclusions; as long as two years ago, I began to jot
down certain of my reflections, for I had proposed to
write an article with a very similar title, and with
the same tendency and the same conclusions. How
great was my joy and amazement when I beheld this
plan, which I had hoped to carry out in the future,
already carried out, and that so harmoniously and
logically, and with such knowledge as I, with the best
will in the world, could never have brought to the
task. I await so eagerly the continuation of that
article that I daily hurry to the post, and am always
making elaborate calculations as to when the next
number of the Sarya will be likely to arrive. My
impatience is the greater because I have some mis-
givings about the final summing-up; I am not quite
sure that Danilevsky will dwell with sufficient emphasis
upon what is the inmost essence, and the ultimate
destiny, of the Russian nation: namely, that Russia
must reveal to the world her own Russian Christ,
whom as yet the -peoples know not, and who is rooted
in our native Orthodox faith. There lies, as I believe,
the inmost essence of our vast impending contribution
to civilization, whereby we shall awaken the European
peoples; there lies the inmost core of our exuberant
and intense existence that is to be. I cannot in the
least express it in these few words ; indeed, I regret
that I have touched on it at all. I will only say this
much more: after our paltry, hypocritical, angry,
one-sided, and barren attitude of negation, such a
journal as yours, with its grave, its thoroughly
Russian, its statesmanlike and vital, tone, must un-
doubtedly have a great success.

JJT. 47] AT FLORENCE 167

[Dostoevsky goes on to praise an article by
Strachov, and then enlarges on the purely business
details of his proposed collaboration on the Sarya.}

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

DRESDEN,
August 29 [September 10], 1869.

At last I have arrived at writing to you, my dear
and only woman-friend Sonetchka. What can you
have thought of my long silence ? . . . I'll tell you
in a few words all that is worth knowing about my-
self; I am only writing to link up our broken chain
of communication. But I will say besides that my
thoughts of you and yours have not been broken.
Anya and I always talk of you, whenever we think of
our Russian home, and that is many times a day.

I remained stuck so long at Florence only because
I had not the money to leave it. The staff of the
Roitssky Viestnik left my urgent request for money
unanswered for more than three months (I have
but this between ourselves ! grounds for supposing
that they had no money in the till, and that that was
the only reason why they did not answer for so long) .
At last they sent me (five weeks ago) seven hundred
roubles to Florence. Well, dear friend, call upon
your whole powers of imagination, and try to depict
for yourself what we in Florence, during the whole of
June and July, and half of August, were going
through ! In my whole life I've never experienced
anything like it ! The guide-books may say that
Florence, by reason of its position, is the coldest
town in winter of all Italy (they mean the actual
Italy that is to say, the whole peninsula); but in

168 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [L

summer, it is the hottest town in the whole peninsula,
and even in the whole Mediterranean region only
some parts of Sicily and Algiers can touch Florence
for heat. Well, and so it was as hot as hell, and we
bore it like true Russians, who notoriously can bear
anything. I may add that for the last six weeks of
our stay there, we were very hard-up. We had not,
it is true, to suffer actual privation in any respect,
nor did we deny ourselves anything, but our abode
was thoroughly uncomfortable. We had been obliged,
for unforeseen reasons, to leave the house where we
had spent the winter ; while we were waiting for that
money, we went to a family with whom we are
friendly, and rented provisionally a tiny dwelling.
But as the money delayed to come, we had to stay
in that hole (where we caught two beastly tarantulas)
three whole months.

Our windows gave on a market -square with arcades
and splendid granite-pillars; in the square was a
municipal fountain in the form of a gigantic bronze
boar from whose throat the water flowed (it is a
classic masterpiece of rare beauty). Well, now reflect
that all those arcades and the masses of stone by
which the whole square is surrounded, drank in and
accumulated all the heat of the sun, and got as
scorching as a stove-pipe in a vapour-bath and that
was the atmosphere we had to live in. The real
heat, that is, the real hell-heat, we had to groan under
for six weeks (earlier, it was just in a sort of way
endurable) ; it was nearly always 34 and 35 degrees
Reaumur in the shade. You must know that the
air, despite this heat and drought (it never once
rained), was wonderfully light; the green in the
gardens (of which there are astonishingly few in
Florence; one sees hardly anything but stones) the
green neither withered nor faded, but seemed brighter

MT. 47l AT FLORENCE 169

and fresher every day; the flowers and lemon-trees
had apparently only waited for the heat; but what
astonished me most me, who was imprisoned in
Florence by untoward circumstance was that the
itinerant foreigners (who are nearly all very rich)
mostly remained in Florence; new ones even arrived
every day. Usually the tourists of all Europe throng,
at the beginning of the hot weather, to the German
spas. When I saw in the streets well-dressed
Englishwomen and even Frenchwomen, I could not
conceive why these people, who had money to get
away with, could voluntarily stay in such a hell. I
was sorriest of all for poor Anya. The poor thing
was then in her seventh or eighth month, and so
suffered dreadfully from the heat. Moreover, the
population of Florence spends the whole night on
its feet, and there's a terrible deal of singing. Of
course we had our windows open at night; then
about five o'clock in the morning, the people began
to racket in the market, and the donkeys to bray, so
that we never could close an eye.

The distance from Florence to Prague (by Venice
and then by boat to Trieste; there's no other way) is
more than a thousand versts; I was therefore very
anxious about Anya; but the renowned Dr. Sapetti
of Florence examined her and said that she could
undertake the journey without any risk. He was
right too, and the journey went off well. On the
way we stopped two days in Venice; when Anya
saw the Piazza of St. Mark's and the palaces, she
almost screamed with delight. In St. Mark's (the
church is a wonderful, incomparable building !) she
lost her carved fan which I had bought her in
Switzerland, and which was particularly dear to her;
she has so few trinkets, you see. My God, how she
did cry over it ! We liked Vienna very much too ;

170 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [L

Vienna is decidedly more beautiful than Paris. In
Prague we spent three days looking for a place of
abode, but found none. One can, in fact, only get
unfurnished rooms there, as in Petersburg or Moscow ;
then one has to get one's own furniture, and a servant-
maid, and set up house, and so forth. Nothing else
is to be had. Our means did not permit of it, and
therefore we left Prague.

Now we have been three months in Dresden;
Anya's confinement may happen at any moment.
For the present we are not doing so badly ; but I am
badly " sold," for it seems now that the hot, dry air in
Florence was extraordinarily beneficial to my health,
and even more so to my nerves (nor had Anya any-
thing to complain of, rather the contrary). It was
precisely on the hottest days that the epilepsy was
least perceptible, and my attacks in Florence were
much slighter than anywhere else. But here I'm
always ill (perhaps it may be only the effect of the
journey). I don't know if I've caught cold, or if the
feverish attacks come from the nerves. These last
three weeks I have had two; both very vicious ones.
Yet the weather is glorious. I ascribe it all to the
fact of coming suddenly from the Italian to the
German climate. I have fever at the actual moment,
and think that in this climate I shall write feverishly
that is, incoherently.

Now I have given you a lot of information about
myself. Of course it is only the hundredth part;
besides illness, many things oppress me, of which I
can give no idea at all. Here is an example : I must
absolutely deliver the beginning of my novel in time
for the January number of the Roussky Viestnik (to
be sure I am bound to admit that they do not press
me in any way; they behave remarkably well to me
and never refuse advances, though I already owe

.ET. 47] WORK AND MONEY 171

them a very great deal; but I am tormented by
pangs of conscience, and so feel just the same as if
they did press me). Moreover, I took an advance of
300 roubles from the Sarya early in the year, and
that with a promise to send them this very year a
story of at least three sheets. At the present moment
I have not begun either the one or the other of these
tasks; at Florence I could not work on account
of the heat. When I undertook the obligation, I
reckoned on going from Florence to Germany early
in the new year, and there setting to work at once.
But what can I do when people make me wait three
months for money, and thus remove from me the
possibility of doing anything at all ? Anya will, in
about ten days, present me with a child, probably a
boy, and this will further delay my endeavours. She
will certainly have to keep her bed for three weeks,
and so will not be able either to do shorthand or to
copy for me. Of my own health, I need not speak.
And then the work itself ! Must I, to carry out my
commissions punctually, tumble over my own feet, as
it were, and so spoil all ? I am now utterly possessed
by one idea ; yet I dare not take any steps to carry it
out, for I am not sufficiently prepared to do so I
still have much to ponder, and I must collect material.
Thus I have to force myself to write, meanwhile, some
new stories. And to me that is terrible. What lies
before me, and how I shall arrange my affairs, is to
me an enigma ! . . .

Till the next time, my dear friend. Write me a
great deal about yourself. And above all as many
facts as possible.

I embrace you.

Your ever devoted

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

172 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LI

LI

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,
October 16 [28], 1869.

[The greater part of the letter deals with a business
misunderstanding with the staff of the Sarya.]

What am I to do now ? When shall I get my
money now ? Why does he [Kachpirev, the editor of
the Sarya] wait for my telegram, and request me to
return to him the letter of exchange (" then I shall
send you the money in the course of post," he said)
instead of sending me now, directly, the second in-
stalment of seventy-five roubles, which was due ten
days ago ? Does he think that the letter in which I
described my destitute condition was a piece of fine
writing and nothing more ? How can I work, when
I am hungry, and had to pawn my very pantaloons to
get the two thalers for the telegram ? The devil take
me and my hunger ! But she, my wife, who now is
suckling her infant, she had to go herself to the pawn-
shop and pledge her last warm woollen garment !
And it has been snowing here for the last two days (I
am not lying: look at the newspapers !) How easily
may she catch cold ! Isn't he capable of understand-
ing, then, that I am ashamed of telling him all these
things ? And it's nothing like the whole of them
either; there are other things of which I'm ashamed:
we haven't yet paid either the midwife or the land-
lady; and all these vexations must fall upon her
precisely in the first month after her accouchement !
Doesn't he see that it's not only me, but my wife,
whom he insults, by taking my letter so frivolously,
for I told him of my wife's great need. Indeed he
has grossly insulted me !

JJT. 48] TELEGRAMS AND THALERS 173

Perhaps he may say: "Confound him and his
poverty 1 He must plead, and not demand, for I am
not bound to pay him his fee in advance." Can't he
understand that by his favourable answer to my first
letter he did bind me t Why did I turn to him with
my request for 200 roubles, and not to Katkov ?
Only and solely because I believed that I should get
the money sooner from him than from Katkov (whom
I did not wish to trouble) ; if I had written to Katkov
then, the money would have been in my hands at
least a week ago ! But I did not. Why ? Because
he [Kachpirev] had bound me by his answer. Conse-
quently he has no right to say that he confounds me
and my poverty, and that it's an impertinence in
me to urge him to make haste.

But of course he will say that he has nothing to do
with it, and that I'm impertinent. Of course he'll say
he has done all that lay in his power, that he sent off
the letter of exchange in the course of post, that he is
nowise to blame, that there is a misunderstanding,
and so forth. And by God, he really believes that
he's right ! Can he not see, then, that it's unforgiv-
able to leave my despairing letter, in which I told him
that through his negligence I had been so long penni-
less to leave it unanswered for twelve days. Yes,
for twelve days, I am not telling a lie; I still have
the envelope with the post-mark intact. It's unheard
of not to reply for six days to a telegram, that he
himself made me send, when a letter would have taken
only four days ! Such negligence is unpardonable,
insulting ! It is a personal offence. For I had told
him about my wife and her accouchement. He had
bound himself to me in advance, by making it seem
superfluous that I should apply to Katkov: it is a
serious personal offence !

He requests me to explain by telegram what my

174 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LII

first telegram meant, and adds: "Of course at my
expense " ! Doesn't he know, then, that an unstamped
telegram is accepted nowhere, and that consequently I
must have two thalers before I can send one ? After
all my letters, is he unable to divine that it's possible
I may not have those two thalers ? It is the thought-
lessness of a man who cares nothing for his fellow's
perplexity. And then they demand of me lucid art,
effortless and untroubled poetry, and point me to
Turgenev and Gontscharov ! If they but knew the
conditions under which I have to work ! .

LII

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,
February 12 [24], 1870.

My attacks, after a long respite, are now coming
on me terribly again, and disturb me in my work.
I have a big idea in hand ; * I don't mean that the
execution is big, but the idea as such. It is somewhat
in the kind of " Raskolnikov " [" Crime and Punish-
ment "], but is still closer to actuality, and deals with
the most weighty question of our time. I shall be
ready with it in the autumn ; and that without over-
hurrying. I shall make an effort to ^bring out the
book directly that is, in the autumn too ; if I can't,
it won't matter. I hope to earn at least as much
money with it as I did with " Raskolnikov "; and so
look forward to having all my affairs in order by the
end of the year, and returning to Russia. Only the
theme is almost too intense and thrilling. I have
never yet worked so easily and with such enjoyment.

1 " The Possessed."

XT. 48] FIRE AND FLAME 175

But enough. I must be positively slaying you with
my interminable letters ! . . .

[The greater part of the letter refers to his relations
with the publisher Stellovsky, and with the staff of
the Sarya.]

LIU

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
February 26 [March 10], 1870.

MUCH-ESTEEMED NIKOLAY NIKOLAYEVITCH,

I hasten to thank you for your letter and your
interest in me. In foreign lands, the letters of our
old friends are peculiarly precious to us. Maikov
apparently means to write to me no more. With the
deepest interest I have read the kindly lines which
you devote to my story. 1 What you say is agreeable
and flattering to me ; just like you, I have an earnest
desire to please my readers. Kachpirev is satisfied,
too; he has written two letters in that sense. It all
rejoices me extraordinarily ; I take particular pleasure
in what you tell me about the Sarya; it is certainly
very gratifying that the existence of the journal is
assured. As far as its tendency is concerned, I am
in entire agreement with it; consequently its success
is my success. The paper reminds me in many
respects of the Vremya of our youthful days.

[Here follow some remarks upon the journal, and
on the feasibility of Dostoevsky's further collaboration
on the Sarya.]

I will tell you honestly: I have never yet sought
a theme for the money's sake, nor even from a sense

i " The Eternal Widow," which appeared in the Sarya
(1870, Nos. i and 2).

176 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LIU

of duty, so as to have a promised work ready by the
appointed time. I have undertaken commissions only
when I already had a theme ready in my head, one
that I really desired to work out, and the working-
out of which I considered necessary. Such a theme
I have now. I won't enlarge upon that ; I will only
say that I have never had a better or a more original
idea. 1 I may say this without incurring the reproach
of lack of modesty, because I speak only of the idea,
not of the execution of it. That lies in God's hand;
I may indeed spoil all, as I have so often done ; still,
an inward voice assures me that inspiration will not
fail in the execution, either. Anyhow I can answer
for the novelty of the idea, and the originality of the
manner, and I am, at the present moment, fire and
flame. It is to be a novel in two parts of at least twelve,
and at most fifteen, sheets (so I see it at this stage).

[There follow considerations of the feasibility of
bringing out the new novel in the Sarya.]

So I await your answer; and make you, besides,
one great and urgent request: Send me if possible,
putting it down against my forthcoming resources
(as you once sent me Tolstoy's " War and Peace ")
Stankevitch's book upon Granovsky. You will do
me thereby a great service, which I shall never forget.
I want the book as urgently as I want air to breathe,
and that as soon as possible ; I need it as material for
my work; 2 without that book I can do nothing.
Don't forget it, for Christ's sake; send it me, no
matter how you manage it. ...

1 He here again refers to the still projected novel " Athe-
ism " (see letters to Maikov of December n, 1868, and
March 25, 1870).

2 Dostoevsky gave the character of Stepan Trophimovitch
Verchovensky in "The Possessed" some of the traits of
Granovsky.

MI. 48] THE " NOVEL 177

LIV

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
March 24 [April 5], 1870.

I hasten, much-esteemed Nikolay Nikolayevitch,
to answer your letter, and I shall come at once to
myself. I want to tell you, decisively and frankly,
that, after the closest consideration, I cannot possibly
promise to have the novel ready so soon as the
autumn. It appears to me quite impracticable; and
I should like to beg the staff not to press me, for I
want to do my work quite as carefully and neatly as
certain gentlemen (that is, the Great Ones) do theirs.
All I will guarantee is that the novel shall be ready
in the January of the coming year. This work is more
to me than aught else. The idea is more precious to
me than any of my other ideas, and I want to do it
well. ... I also set great hopes on the novel which
I am now writing 1 for the Roussky Viestnik', I don't
mean as a work of art, but because of its tendencies ;
I mean to utter certain thoughts, whether all the
artistic side of it goes to the dogs or not. The
thoughts that have gathered themselves together in
my head and my heart are pressing me on ; even if
it turns into a mere pamphlet, I shall say all that I
have in my heart. I hope for success. For that
matter, who ever sets himself to a task without
so hoping ? This work for the Roussky Viestnik
I shall soon have finished, and then I can turn with
gusto to the novel.

I have been meditating the idea of this novel for
three years ; till now I have not been able to make up

1 " The Possessed."

12

178 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [Liv

my mind to attack it in these foreign lands ; I wanted
not to begin till I was in Russia. But during these
three years, the whole conception has matured within
me, and I think that I can begin the first part (which
I intend for the Sarya), even here, for the action of
that part is concerned with many years ago. You
need not be uneasy when I speak of a " first part."
The idea demands great length ; at least as great as in
the Tolstoy an novels. It will really be a cycle of five
distinct stories; these will be so independent of one
another that any one of them (except the two that
come midway) could perfectly well be published in
different journals as completely separate works. The
general title is to be : " The Life-Story of a Great
Sinner," 1 and each separate tale will have its own
title as well. Each division (that is, each single
story) will be about fifteen sheets at most in length.
To write the second story, I must be in Russia; the
action of that part takes place in a Russian monastery ;
although I know the Russian monasteries well, I
must nevertheless come back to Russia. I should
like to have said much more about it to you, but
what can one say in a letter ? I repeat, however,
that I can't possibly promise the novel for this year ;
don't press me, and you will get a conscientious,
perhaps even a really good, work (at all events I have
set myself this idea as the goal of my literary future,
for I can't at all hope to live and work more than six
or seven years longer).

I have read the March number of the Sarya with
great enjoyment. I await impatiently the continua-
tion of your article, so that I may grasp it in its
entirety. It seems to me that your point is to show
Herzen as an Occidentalist, and in general to speak

1 This, like " Atheism," is the original idea, never com-
pletely carried out, of " The Brothers Karamazov."

' .$?.: - .

K^. .' - - -I
%^ ;- :^_^ . ~~7~-- ^:^~_^Lf,
^AI*. c^r%r?vrr^ - :, ^gvggg'^^gfi
y r^.<^. ...^vartu^^, ^4^

FACSIMILE OK "THK POSSESSED," PART III.: BEGINNING OF
CHAPTKK I.

JST. 48] TOLSTOY 179

of the Occident in contradistinction to Russia; am
I right ? You chose your point of departure very
cleverly ; Herzen is a pessimist ; but do you really
hold his doubts (" Who is guilty ?" " Krupov," and
the rest) to be insoluble ? It seems to me that you
evade that question, in order to give your funda-
mental idea more value. Anyhow I await most
eagerly the continuation of the article; the theme is
positively too exciting and actual. What will come
of it, if you really adduce the proof that Herzen,
earlier than many others, pointed to the decadence
of the West ? What will the Occidentalists of the
Granovsky period say to that ? To be sure, I don't
know if that is what you really are working up to;
it is only a presentiment of mine. Don't you, more-
over, think (although it has nothing to do with the
theme of your article) that there is another stand-
point from which to judge the character and activi-
ties, of Herzen namely that he ever and always was
first of all a writer ? The writer in him prevails ever
and always, in everything that he does. The agitator
is a writer, the politician a writer, the Socialist a
writer, the philosopher, to the last degree, a writer !
This peculiarity of his nature is, I think, explanatory
of much in his work; even to his levity and his love
of punning when he is treating the most serious moral
and philosophical questions (which, by-the-bye, is
not a little repellent in him).

[He then speaks of Strachov's polemical articles,
which Dostoevsky thinks too mild: "The Nihilists
and Occidentalists deserve the knout."]

You maintain, among other things, that Tolstoy
is equal to any of our greatest writers; with that
passage in your letter I cannot possibly say that I
agree. It is a thing that ought not to be affirmed !

i8o DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LV

Pushkin and Lomonossov were geniuses. A writer
who steps forward with the " Negro of Peter the
Great " and " Bielkin " comes bringing a message ol
genius, a new message, that nobody before him has
anywhere whatever delivered. But when such an one
comes with " War and Peace," he comes after that
new message which had been already delivered by
Pushkin; and this stands fast, however far Tolstoy
may go in the development of that message already
delivered before him by another genius. I hold this
to be very important. But I can't explain myself at
all fully in these few lines. . . .

LV

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,

March 25 [April 6], 1870.

[The first half of the letter deals with business
matters.]

The job for the Roussky Viestnik will not particu-
larly tax me; but I have promised the Sarya a real
piece of work, and I want really to do it. This latter
has been maturing in my brain for two years past.
It is the same idea about which I have already once
written to you. This will be my last novel; it will
be as long as " War and Peace." I know from our
one-time talks that you will approve the idea. The
novel will consist of five longish tales (each of fifteen
sheets; in these two years my plan has fully ripened).
The tales are complete in themselves, so that one
could even sell them separately. The first I intend
for Kachpirev ; its action lies in the 'forties. (The title
of the whole book will be " The Life-Story of a Great

JET. 48] " THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV " 181

Sinner," but each part will have its own title as
well.) The fundamental idea, which will run through
each of the parts, is one that has tormented me, con-
sciously and unconsciously, all my life long: it is the
question of the existence of God. The hero is now
an atheist, now a believer, now a fanatic and sectarian,
and then again an atheist. The second story will
have for its setting a monastery. On this second story
I base all my hopes. Perhaps people \vifl admit at
last that I can write something but pure nonsense.
(I will confide to you alone, Apollon Nikolayevitch,
that in this second story the principal character
is to be taken from Tikhon Zadonsky; of course
under another name, but also as a Bishop who has
withdrawn to a monastery for repose.) A thirteen-
yeared boy, who has been concerned in a serious
crime, a lad intellectually mature, but utterly corrupt
(I know the type), and the future hero of the novel
as a whole has been sent by his parents to the
monastery to be there brought up. The little
wolf, the little Nihilist, there comes in contact with
Tikhon. In the same monastery is to be found
Tchaadayev 1 (also of course under another name).
Why should not Tchaadayev have spent a year in
a monastery ? Let us suppose that Tchaadayev,
after that first article which caused him to be weekly
examined by physicians as to his state of mind, had
been unable to refrain from publishing a second
article somewhere abroad (say, in France ; it is quite
conceivable; and for this article he gets banished for
a year to a monastery. But he is allowed to receive
visitors there for example, Bielinsky, Granovsky,
even Pushkin, and others. (Of course it is not to be

1 Pyotr Yakovlevitch Tchaadayev (1796-1856), a philo-
sopher, author of " Philosophical Letters," after the publica-
tion of which he was declared by Nicholas I. to be mad.

182 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LV

the actual Tchaadayev; I only want to display the
type.) At the monastery there is also a Paul the
Prussian, a Golubov, and a Monk Parfeny. (I know
the milieu through and through ; I have been familiar
with the Russian monasteries from childhood.) But
the principal figures are to be Tikhon and the boy.
For God's sake, don't tell anyone what this second
part is to be about. Usually I never tell anybody
about my work beforehand; only to you would I
whisper it; whatever others may think of the value
of my plan, to me it is worth more than aught else.
Don't talk to anybody about Tikhon. I have told
Strachov about the monastery idea, but said no word
about the figure of Tikhon. Perhaps I shall succeed
in creating a majestic, authentic saint. Mine is to be
quite different from Kostanchoglov, 1 and also from
the German in Gontscharov's " Oblomov." I shall
probably not create at all, but present the real Tikhon,
who has long been shrined in my heart. But even a
close, faithful delineation I should regard it as a great
achievement to succeed in. Don't talk to anyone
about it. Now, to write this second part of the novel,
which goes on in the monastery, I must absolute!}'
be in Russia. Ah, if I could but bring it off ! The
first part deals with the childhood of my hero. Of
course, there are other characters besides children;
it is a real novel. This first part, fortunately, I can
write even here; I shall offer it to the Sarya. Will
they not refuse it, though ? But a thousand roubles
is no very excessive fee. . . .

Nihilism isn't worth talking about. Only wait
until this scum that has cut itself adrift from Russia,
is quite played-out. And, do you know, I really
think that many of the young scoundrels, decadent
boys that they are, will sooner or later turn over
1 In Gogol's " Dead Souls."

2ET. 48] LONGING FOR RUSSIA 183

a new leaf, and be metamorphosed into decent,
thorough-going Russians ? And the rest may go
rot. But even they will finally hold their tongues,
for sheer impotence. What scoundrels the}' are,
though ! . . .

LVI

To his Sister Vera, and his Niece Sofia
Alexandrovna

DRESDEN,
May 7 [19], 1870.

MY DEAR FRIENDS SONETCHKA AND VEROTCHKA,

I have not written to you for much too long a

period; the reason is not my laziness, but lies in my

many recent anxieties and my generally depressed

condition of mind.

We are still living in Dresden, and are at present
comfortable enough. Little Lyuba is a dear and
most healthy child. As we have already lost a child,
we are very anxious about this one. Anya is nursing,
and it is clear that she finds it more and more trying
to her every day. She has grown very thin and
weak, and is consumed with home-sickness. I too
long frightfully for Russia, and from that longing
arises my constant enervation. My affairs are in
the worst conceivable condition. We certainly have
quite enough to live on, but we cannot even think of
returning to Russia. Nevertheless, I must get back
somehow, for life here is to me quite unbearable. To
go from here to Petersburg, we should have to make
a move before October; later it will be too cold, and
the little one might easily catch a chill. Moreover, to
pay our debts here before we leave, we should need at
least three hundred roubles ; besides that, the travel-
ling expenses for our whole family and for the instal-

184 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LVI

ment in Petersburg : the whole amounts to no small
sum. But this is not all; the principal thing is the
creditors. I owe them, with the interest, nearly
6,000 roubles. Less than a third that is, 2,000
roubles I cannot offer them, if they are to consent
to wait a year for the rest. But they would not agree
to do that, even if I paid this third. They are all
furious with me, and would certainly come down
without mercy, in order to punish me. So you can
reckon for yourself what a sum I must have to settle
all, and be able to come back : that is, from three to
four thousand roubles at least. Where am I to get
such an amount ? The one thing I can build on is
my literary labour. Three years ago, when I left
Russia, I cherished the same hopes. I had just had
great success with a novel, and it is therefore compre-
hensible that I should still be filled with the hope of
writing another which will enable me to get rid of all
my debts in a year or so. But at that time I paid
three creditors seven thousand roubles all of a sudden,
and this enraged the others, who came down on me,
demanding to know why I had satisfied those three
creditors, and not the rest as well. They indicted
me, and I took to my heels, but in the hope that I
should manage to write another novel in a year and
pay off all my debts. That hope was mistaken. The
novel has been a failure, and in addition there has
happened something that I could not have foreseen:
namely, that through being obliged to live away from
Russia for so long, I am losing the capacity to write
decently at all, and so could hope nothing from a
fresh attempt at a novel. (These difficulties are less
of an intellectual than a material nature : for example,
while I live abroad I can have no personal outlook
upon the most ordinary events of our period.) I have
a plan for a new novel, the success of which I con-

ST. 48] " THE POSSESSED " 185

sider an absolute certainty; but I cannot decide to
write it here, and am obliged to postpone it. For the
moment I am writing a very odd story 1 for the
Roussky Viestnik] I have to work off an advance
from them.

You remember, I daresay, my dear Sonetchka,
what you wrote with regard to the novel which I
did over here : that you wondered how I could under-
take and bind myself to get such a work done in a
fixed space of time. But the work which I am now
writing for the Roussky Viestnik is a good deal more
arduous still. I have to cram into twenty-five sheets
material which ought to take at least fifty, and that
only because it must be finished by a certain date;
and I have to do this, because for the moment, while
I am living abroad, I can't write anything else. The
people at the Sarya office praised beyond measure a
little story that I published in that journal. Even
the newspaper critics (on the Golos, the Peterbourg-
skaya Listok, 2 etc.) were most benevolent. But
you will hardly believe how it revolts me to write
that kind of thing when I have so many fully formed
ideas in my mind: that is, to write something quite
different from what I want to be at. You can surely
understand, Sonetchka, that that alone is great
torment, and added to it is the desperate state of my
affairs. Since I have been absent from Petersburg,
all my business matters and connections there have
been frightfully neglected (although " The Idiot " did
miss fire, several publishers wanted to buy the rights
of the second edition from me; they offered me
relatively good terms from a thousand five hundred
to two thousand roubles). But all these projects fell
through, for I had no one in Petersburg to look after
the business for me. Well, that's how it stands with
i " The Possessed." 3 Petersburg News.

186 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LVII

me. And I say nothing of how very much I grieve
for Anna Grigorovna, longing so terribly as she does
for Russia. I can't possibly tell everything in this
letter. But I have finally resolved to return to
Russia, in any event, in the autumn of this year, and
shall quite decidedly get it done somehow. Of course,
too, I shall come to Moscow (for business reasons, if
for. no others) ; that is, if the creditors do not put me
in a Petersburg prison so soon as I arrive there. In
any case I hope to see you all again, my dears, at the
beginning of the winter.

In truest love:
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, ANYA, AND LYUBA.

LVII

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
June ii [23], 1870.

[In the first half of the letter Dostoevsky complains
of Kachpirev, who has not agreed to his proposal
with regard to " The Life-Story of a Great Sinner."]

By chance the Viestnik Europi 1 for the current
year fell into my hands, and I looked through all the
numbers that have appeared. I was amazed. How
can this unbelievably mediocre journal (which at its
best can only be classed with the Northern Bee of
Bulgaria) have such vogue with us (6,000 copies in
the second edition !). It is because they know their
business. How deftly they adopt the popular tone !
An insipid pattern for Liberalism ! These are the
things we like. But the paper is, nevertheless, very
well managed. It appears punctually each month,

1 The European Gazette; a monthly.

JJT. 48] TURGENEV PLAYED-OUT 187

and has a varied staff of contributors. I read, among
other things, " The Execution of Tropmann," by
Turgenev. You may be of a different opinion, Nikolay
Nikolayevitch, bi I was infuriated by that preten-
tious and paltry piece of pathos. Why does he keep
on explaining that he was very wrong to look on at
the execution ? Certainly he was, if the whole thing
was a mere drama for him; but the sons of men
have not the right to turn away from anything that
happens on the earth and ignore it ; no, on the highest
moral grounds they have not. Homo sum et nihil
humani . . . and so forth. Peculiarly comic is it,
when at the last moment he does turn away, and
thus avoids seeing the actual execution. " Look you,
gentlemen, of what delicate upbringing I am ! I
could not endure that sight !" All through, he
betrays himself. The most definite impression that
one gets from the whole article is that he is desper-
ately concerned with himself and his own peace of
mind, even when it comes to the cutting off of heads.
Oh, I spit upon the whole business. I am fairly sick
of folk. I consider Turgenev the most played-out
of all played-out Russian writers, whatever you,
Nikolay Nikolayevitch, may write in Turgenev's
favour: please, don't take it ill of me. . . .

LVIII

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

DRESDEN,
July 2 [14], 1870.
MY DEAR SONETCHKA,

I really wished to answer your last letter in-
stantly, but have again delayed my reply. Blame
my work and various anxieties for that. And besides,

i88 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LVIII

you, like all my Moscow friends, have the bad habit
of giving no address in your letters.

From your letter I conclude that you have moved.
Where then am I to address you ? You should, you
know, reckon also with the possibility of my having
mislaid or lost the letter in which you gave your last
address. As it is, I have spent three days looking
through all my correspondence for the last three
years. But I happen to remember your old address,
and there I send this letter. Will it reach you, I
wonder ? Such doubts discourage me. I beseech
you not to write your letters, at any rate not those
to me, in the woman's way that is, not to omit date
and address ; by God, we shall manage better so !

Your letter made a very mournful impression on
me, dear. Is it really a fact that if you go into the
country, they won't give you any more translation
to do, even in the autumn ? Why do you so torment
yourself ? You need happiness and healthy surround-
ings. You work from early morning till far into the
night. You must marry. My dear Sonetchka, for
Christ's sake, don't be angry with me for saying that.
Happiness is meted out to us but once in life; all
that comes afterwards is merely pain. We must
prepare ourselves for this beforehand, and arrange
our lives as normally as possible. Forgive me for
writing to you in this tone, when I have not seen
you for three years. I don't mean it for advice; it is
only my most cherished desire. For I must love
you I cannot help it !

As for my return to Russia, it is of course but a
possibility of the fancy, which may come true, yet
nevertheless is a mere dream. We shall see. And
as for the rest of your counsels (with regard to the
sale of the novel, the return without money, in face
of the possibility of being clapped into jail by the

JET. 48] A SCOLDING 189

creditors, and so forth), I must tell you that your
whole letter displays your inexperience and your
ignorance of the questions at issue. I have been
occupied with literature for twenty-five years, but
have never yet known a case of the author himself
offering the booksellers his second edition (still less
through the agency of strangers, to whom it matters
nothing). If one offers the wares one's-self, one gets
only a tenth of their value. But if the publisher,
that is to say the purchaser, comes to one of his own
accord, one gets ten times as much. " The Idiot "
came too late ; it should have appeared in earlier years.
Then, as to the creditors, they will, as sure as death,
imprison me, for therein lies their sole advantage.
Believe me, these gentry know very precisely how
much I can get from the Roussky Viestnik or the
Sarya. They will have me imprisoned in the hope
that one or the other journal, or, if not, somebody
else, will get me out. That is dead certain. No
if I am to come back, I must do it quite differently.

I find it very hard to have to look on and see
Anna Grigorovna consumed by home-sickness and
longing as she is. That troubles me more than
aught else. The child is healthy, but has not yet
been weaned. Return is now my one fixed idea.
If I go on living here much longer, I shall lose all
power to earn anything; nobody will consent to
print me. In Russia, at the worst I could edit
school-books or compilations. Well, anyhow, it's
not worth while wasting words upon this matter. I
shall most decidedly return, even if it is to be put in
jail. I should like just to finish the work that I am
doing for the Roussky Viestnik, so that I might be
left in peace. And yet, as things are, I can't, in any
case, get done before Christmas. The first long half
of the work I shall deliver to the office in six weeks,

igo DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LVIII

and get a little money. The second half I shall send
at the beginning of the winter, and the third in
February. Printing will have to begin in this coming
January. I am afraid that they will simply send
back my novel. I shall tell them from the very first
that I don't intend to alter or take out anything in
the book. The idea of this novel seemed to me most
attractive at first, but now I am sorry that I ever
began it. Not that it does not still interest me, but
I should prefer to write something else.

As often as I write to you, I feel what a long space
of time divides us from one another. And by-the-bye,
there's another thing : I have the most fervent desire
to take, before my return to Russia, a trip to the East
that is, to Constantinople, Athens, the Archipelago,
Syria, Jerusalem, and Athos. This trip would cost at
least 1,500 roubles. But the expenses would not
signify: I could cover them all by writing a book
about the visit to Jerusalem; I know by experience
that such books are very popular nowadays. But for
the moment I have neither the time nor the means ;
and yesterday I read, in an extra-edition, that at any
moment there may be war between France and
Prussia. So much combustible material has accumu-
lated everywhere, that the war, so soon as it begins,
must assume formidable dimensions. God grant that
Russia may not be mixed up in any of the European
entanglements ; we have enough to do at home.

I love you and yours beyond all bounds, and I hope
you will believe that. Love me also a little. I do
not wish to die on German soil; I want before my
death to return home, and there die.

My wife and Lyuba send kisses. It is very hot
here with us, and yesterday, after a long respite, I
had an attack again. To-day my head is quite
muddled ; I feel as if I were crazy.

JST. 48] AN " IRISH " POSTSCRIPT 191

Till the next time, my dears forget me not.
I embrace and kiss you.

Your
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

P.S. If I get no answer to this letter, I shall
conclude that it has not reached you. My address
is: Allemagne, Saxe, Dresden, a M. Theodore Dos-
toevsky, Post restante.

LIX

To his Niece Sofia Alexandrovna

DRESDEN,
August 17 [29], 1870.

MY DEAR FRIEND SONETCHKA,

Forgive me for not having at once answered
on receiving your letter of August 3 (I got your
short letter of July 28 also). I have, often, so many
anxieties and disagreeables that I have not the energy
to begin anything, least of all a letter. Only my
work has to be done in any condition of mind and
I do it; but there are times when I am not equal
even to that, and then I abandon all. My life is not
an easy one. This time I want to write to you about
my situation: to be sure I don't like letter-writing,
for I find it hard, after so many years of separation,
to write of things that are of consequence to me, and
especially to write in such a way that you will under-
stand me. Lively letters one can write only to those
with whom one has no relations of affection.

The most important thing is that now I must
return to Russia. That idea is simple enough; but
I couldn't possibly describe to you in full detail all
the torments and disadvantages that I have to endure
in these foreign lands; of the moral torments (the

192 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LIX

longing for home, the necessity of being in touch with
Russian life which as a writer is essential to me, etc.),
I won't at all speak. How unbearable are the
anxieties about my family alone ! I see clearly how
Anya longs for home, and how terribly she languishes
here. At home, too, I could earn much more money ;
here we are absolutely impoverished. We have just
enough to live on, it is true; but we cannot keep a
nursemaid. A nursemaid here requires a room to
herself, her washing, and high wages, three meals a
day, and a certain amount of beer (of course only
fronix foreigners). Anya is nursing the baby, and
never gets a full night's rest. She has no amuse-
ments of any kind, and usually not one moment to
herself. Also her state of health leaves something to
be desired. Why do I tell you all this, though ?
There are hundreds of similar little troubles, and
together they make up a heavy burden. How gladly,
for example, would I go to Petersburg this autumn
with my wife and child (as I pictured to myself early
in the year) ; but to get away from here and travel to
Russia I must have not less than 2,000 roubles; nor
am I therein reckoning my debts I need so much as
that for the journey alone. Oh yes ! I can see you
shrugging your shoulders and asking: "Why so
much? What is the good of this exaggeration?"
Do, my dear, for Heaven's sake, get out of your
habit of judging other people's affairs without know-
ing all the circumstances. Two thousand roubles are
absolutely necessary to do the journey, and to instal
ourselves in Petersburg. You may believe me when
I say it. Where am I to get hold of the money ?
And now we must be getting the child weaned, and
vaccinated too. Only think what a fresh crop of cares
for Anya, who is already run-down and feeble. I have
to look on at it all, and am nearly driven out of my

JET. 48] THE " ROUSSKY VIESTNIK " 193

senses. And if I do get the money for the journey
in three months, the winter will just be upon us, and
one can't drag an infant over a thousand versts in
frosty weather. Consequently we shall have to wait
till early spring. And shall we even then have
money ? You must know that we can scarcely
manage on our income here, and have to go into
debt for half we need. But enough of that. I want
to talk of other things now, though they're all con-
nected with the principal subject.

I forget whether I've written to you about my
difficulties with the Roussky Viestnik ; the fact is
that at the end of last year I published a story in the
Sarya, while I still had to work off an advance from
the Roussky Viestnik; it was a year since I had
promised them the work. Did I tell you how it
came about ? How my novel got unexpectedly long,
and how I suddenly perceived that there was no time
to get anything written by the beginning of the year
for the Roussky Viestnik ? They made me no reply
about the matter, but ceased to send money. At
the beginning of this year I wrote to Katkov that
I would deliver the novel chapter by chapter from
June, so that they could print at the end of the year.
Then I worked at the utmost limit of my energy and
my powers; I knew that if I were to break off my
literary connection with the Roussky Viestnik, I
should have no means of livelihood here abroad (for
it is very difficult to enter into fresh relations with
another journal from a distance). And besides I was
frightfully distressed by the thought that they were
calling me a rogue at the office, when they had
always treated me so extraordinarily well. The novel
at which I was working was very big, very original,
but the idea was a little new to me. I needed great
self-confidence to get equal with that idea and as

13

194 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LIX

a matter of fact I did not get equal with it, and the
book went wrong. I pushed on slowly, feeling that
there was something amiss with the whole thing, but
unable to discover what it was. In July, directly
after my last letter to you, I had a whole succession
of epileptic fits (they recurred every week) . I was so
reduced by them that for a whole month I dared not
even think of working ; work might have been actually
dangerous to me. And when, a fortnight ago, I set to
again, I suddenly saw quite clearly why the book had
gone so ill, and where the error lay ; as if possessed by
sudden inspiration,! saw in an instant a quite new plan
for the book. I had to alter the whole thing radically ;
without much hesitation I struck out all that I had
written up to that time (about fifteen sheets in all),
and began again at the first page. The labour of
a whole year was destroyed. If you only knew,
Sonetchka, how grievous it is to be a writer that is,
to bear a writer's lot ! Do you know that I am abso-
lutely aware that if I could have spent two or three
years at that book as Turgenev, Gontscharov, and
Tolstoy can I could have produced a work of which
men would still be talking in a hundred years from
now ! I am not boasting; ask your conscience and
your memory if I have ever yet boasted. The idea
is so good and so significant that I take off my own
hat to it. But what will come to pass ? I know very
well : I shall get it done in eight or nine months, and
utterly spoilt. Such a work demands at least two
or three years. (It will, even so, be very extensive
as much as thirty-five sheets.) Separate details and
characters will perhaps come not so badly off; but
only sketchily. Much will be " half-baked, " and much
a great deal too drawn-out. Innumerable beauties I
shall have altogether to renounce getting in, for
inspiration depends in many respects upon the time

JET. 48] WAR 195

one has at disposal. And yet I am setting to work !
It is terrible ; it is like a determined suicide ! But
it's not even the most important thing: the most
important thing is that all my calculations are upset.
At the beginning of the year, I was confidently hoping
that I should succeed in sending a considerable portion
of the novel to the Roussky Viestnik by the first of
August, and so bettering my situation. What am
I to do now ? At earliest I shall be able to deliver
a small portion by September ist (I wanted to send
a lot at once, so as to have an excuse for requesting
an advance) ; now I am ashamed to ask for money ;
the first part (it is to be in five parts) will consist of
only seven sheets how can I ask for an advance ?
All my calculations having thus proved false, I don't
know at this moment what on earth I am to live
on. And it is in such a state of mind that I must
labour !

[He writes further of his somewhat strained rela-
tions with the Roussky Viestnik.]

All this worries me, and deprives me of the tran-
quillity that I need for the work; and there are
other things besides, which I do not mention at all.
With this beginning of the war, all credit has very
nearly ceased, so that living is much more difficult.
But I shall get through it somehow or other. The
most important thing, though, is health; and my
state has considerably worsened.

With your views on war I can't possibly agree.
Without war, people grow torpid in riches and com-
fort, and lose the power of thinking and feeling
nobly ; they get brutal, and fall back into barbarism.
I am not speaking of individuals, but of whole races.
Without pain, one comprehends not joy. Ideals are
purified by suffering, as gold is by fire. Mankind

196 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [ox

must strive for his Heaven. France has of late
become brutalized and degraded. A passing trial
will do her no harm; France will be able to endure
it, and then will awake to a new life, and new ideas.
But hitherto France has been dominated on the one
hand by old formulas, and on the other by craven-
heartedness and pleasure-seeking.

The Napoleonic dynasty will be impossible hence-
forth. New life and reformation of the country are
so important that even the bitterest trials are nothing
by comparison. Do you not recognize God's hand
in it ?

Also our politics of the last seventy years I mean
Russian, European, and German politics must
inevitably alter. The Germans will at last show
us their real faces. Everywhere in Europe great
changes must inevitably come and of their own
accord.

What new life will be called forth everywhere by
this mighty shock ! For want of great conceptions,
even science has sunk into arid materialism; what
does a passing blow signify in face of that ?

You write " People kill and wound, and then
nurse the wounded." Do but think of the noblest
words that ever yet were spoken: " I desire love, and
not sacrifice." At this moment, or at any rate in a
few days, there will, I believe, be much decided. Who
betrayed whom ? Who made a strategical error ?
The Germans or the French ? I believe, the
Germans.

Or rather, ten days ago I was of that opinion.
But now it appears to me that the Germans will keep
the upper hand a while longer; the French are on
the verge of an abyss, into which they are bound
to plunge for a time by that I mean the dynastic
interests to which the fatherland is being sacri-

&T. 48] HIS CREDITORS 197

ficed. I could tell you much of German opinion,
which I can observe here, and which is very signi-
ficant in the present political crisis; but I have no
time.

I greet you all. Remember me to everyone. I
embrace you from my heart; do not forget that no
one is so cordially inclined to you as I am. I am
glad that I have been able to write to you. Write
to me, don't forget me; I am now setting to again
at my forced labour.

With heart and soul, your FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

When I think of the Petersburg relatives, my
heart aches. I can send them nothing before the
beginning of next year, though they are in great
distress. This weighs heavily on my conscience; I
had promised to aid them; about Pasha I am par-
ticularly grieved.

P.S. You don't understand my position with the
creditors; that is why you think it would not be
worth their while to put me in prison. On the
contrary : they will quite certainly have me arrested,
for in many respects it would be of great advantage
to them. I forget whether I told you that I have
hopes of procuring, immediately after my arrival in
Petersburg, the use of about 5,000 roubles for about
three years. That would save me from imprisonment.
Nor is such a hope entirely without foundation. But
I must do the business personally; if I attempted it
from here, I might spoil all. The plan has nothing
to do with my literary activities. At the same time,
if my present novel should make a success, my hopes
for these 5,000 roubles would be sensibly improved.
This is all between ourselves.

Till next time, my dears.

Your
DOSTOEVSKY.

198 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LX

LX

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
October g [21], 1870.

I have not written to you till now, because I have
been uninterruptedly occupied with the novel for the
Roussky Viestnik. The work was going so badly, and
I had to re-write so much, that at last I vowed to
myself that I would read nothing and write nothing,
and hardly even raise my head from my desk, until I
had accomplished what I had set myself to do. And
I am only at the beginning now ! It is true that many
scenes belonging to the middle of the novel are ready
written, and separate bits of what I have rejected I
shall still be able to use. Nevertheless, I am still at
work on the earliest chapters. That is a bad omen,
and yet I mean to make the thing as good as may be.
The truth is that the tone and style of a story must
make themselves. But true as that is, one occasion-
ally loses one's note, and has to find it again. In a
word: none of my works has given me so much
trouble as this one. At the beginning, that is at the
end of last year, I thought the novel very " made "
and artificial, and rather scorned it. But later I was
overtaken by real enthusiasm, I fell in love with my
work of a sudden, and made a big effort to get all
that I had written into good trim. Then, in the
summer, came a transformation: up started a new,
vital character, who insisted on being the real hero of
the book ; the original hero (a most interesting figure,
but not worthy to be called a hero) fell into the
background. The new one so inspired me that I
once more began to go over the whole afresh. And

JST. 49] " THE POSSESSED " 199

now, when I have already sent the beginning to
the office of the Roussky Viestnik, I am suddenly
possessed with terror I fear that I am not equal to
the theme I have chosen. This dread torments me
horribly. And yet I have not arbitrarily dragged
in my hero. I arranged for his entire role in the
synopsis of the book (I prepared a synopsis in several
sheets, and sketched therein the entire action, though
without the dialogues and comments). Therefore I
hope that I may still bring off this hero, and even
make him a quite new and original figure; I hope
and fear simultaneously. For it is really time that I
wrote something important at last. Perhaps it will
all burst up like a soap-bubble. But come what come
will, I must write ; the many re-fashionings have lost
me much time, and I have very little ready. . . .

[The rest is concerned with journalism and the
Sarya.]

LXI

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,
December 15 [27], 1870.

I have undertaken a task to which my powers are
not equal. I attacked a big novel (a novel " with a
purpose " most unusual for me), and at first I
thought I should manage it quite easily. But what
has been the issue ? When I had tried about ten
settings, and saw what the theme demanded, I got
very much out of heart with the thing. The first
part I finished because I simply had to (it is very
long, about ten sheets ; and there are to be four parts
in all), and sent it off. I believe that thjat first part
is empty and quite ineffective. From it the reader

200 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXII

can't at all perceive what I'm aiming at, or how the
action is to develop. The Rotissky Viestnik people
expressed themselves quite flatteringly about this
beginning. The novel is called " The Possessed "
(they are the same " possessed " about whom I wrote
to you before), and has a motto from the Gospels. I
want to speak out quite openly in this book, with no
ogling of the younger generation. I can't possibly
say all I should like in a letter.

[He then speaks of his account with the publisher
Stellovsky.]

LXII

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,
December 30, 1870.

Yes, I am resolute to return, and shall certainly be
in Petersburg early in the year. Here, I am con-
stantly in such a frightful state of mind that I can
hardly write at all. Work is dreadfully difficult to
me. I follow Russian and German happenings with
feverish interest ; I have been through much in these
four years. It has been a strenuous, if a lonely,
existence. Whatever God shall send me in the
future, I will humbly accept. My family, too,
weighs heavily on my mind. In a word, I need
human intercourse.

Strachov has written to me that everything in our
society is still fearfully puerile and crude. If you
knew how acutely one realizes that from here ! But
if you knew, besides, what a deep-drawn repulsion,
almost approaching hatred, I have conceived for the
whole of Western Europe during these four years !

My God, how terrible are our prepossessions with

JET. 49] 1870 IN DRESDEN 201

regard to foreign countries ! Are Russians simple-
tons, then, that they can believe it is through their
schooling that the Prussians have come off con-
querors ? Such a view is positively sinful: it's a fine
schooling whereby children are harassed and tor-
mented, as it were by Attila's horde, and even worse.

You write that the national spirit of France is in
revolt against brute force. From the beginning I
have never doubted that if only the French will not
hasten to make peace, if they will but hold out for as
much as three months, the Germans will be driven
forth with shame and ignominy. I should have
to write you a long letter if I tried to give you a
series of my personal observations for example,
of the way in which soldiers are sent to France,
how they are recruited, equipped, housed and fed,
transported. It is extraordinarily interesting. An
unfortunate poverty-stricken woman, say, who lives
by letting two furnished rooms (rooms are all " fur-
nished " here; she would have about twopence worth
of furniture of her own) . . . such a woman is
forced, because she " has her own furniture," to
supply quarters and food for ten soldiers. The
quartering lasts a day, or two, or three at most a
week. But the business costs her from twenty to
thirty thalers.

I have myself read letters from German soldiers in
France to their parents (small business-folk). Good
God, the things they have to tell ! O, how ill they
are, and how hungry ! But it would take too long to
relate. One more observation, though, I'll give you:
at first, one often heard the people in the streets
singing the " Wacht am Rhein": now, one never
hears it at all. By far the greatest excitement and
pride exists among the professors, doctors, and
students; the crowd are but little interested. In-

202 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXIII

deed, they are very quiet. But the professors are
extraordinarily arrogant. I encounter them every
evening in the public library. A very influential
scholar with silver-white hair loudly exclaimed, the
day before yesterday, " Paris must be bombarded !"
So that's the outcome of all their learning. If not of
their learning, then of their stupidity. They may be
very scholarly, but they're frightfully limited ! Yet
another observation: all the populace here can read
and write, but every one of them is terribly unintelli-
gent, obtuse, stubborn, and devoid of any high ideals.
But enough of this. Till we meet. I embrace you
and thank you in anticipation. For God's sake, don't
forget me, and do write to me.

Your
DOSTOEVSKY.

LXIII

To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov

DRESDEN,
March 2 [14], 1871.

[At first the topic is a pending transaction between
Dostoevsky and the publisher Stellovsky.]

I was delighted by your flattering opinion of
the beginning of my novel. My God, how I feared
for that book, and how I still fear ! By the time you
read these lines, you will have seen the second half of
the first part in the February number of the Roussky
Viestnik. What do you say to it ? I am terribly
anxious. I can't at all tell if I shall get on with the
sequel. I am in despair. There are to be only four
parts in all that is, forty sheets. Stepan Trofimo-
vitch 1 is a figure of superficial importance ; the novel

i Verchovensky in " The Possessed."

AT. 49] POPULAR SUCCESSES 203

will not in any real sense deal with him; but his
story is so closely connected with the principal
events of the book that I was obliged to take him as
basis for the whole. This Stepan Trofimovitch will
take his " benefit " in the fourth part; his destiny
is to have a most original climax. I won't answer
for anything else, but for that I answer without
limitations. And yet I must once more say: I
tremble like a frightened mouse. The idea tempted
me, and I got tremendously carried away by it ; but
whether I shall bring it off, whether the whole novel
isn't a [. . - 1 ] well, that's my great trouble.

Only think: I have already had letters from
several quarters congratulating me on the first part.
This has enormously encouraged me. I tell you
quite truthfully, with no idea of flattering you, that
your judgment has more weight with me than any
other. In the first place, I know that you are abso-
lutely frank; in the second, your letter contains an
inspired saying: " They are Turgenev's heroes in
their old age." That's admirably said ! As I wrote,
some such idea hovered before me; but you have
expressed it in a word or two, in a formula, as it
were. Aye for those words I thank you ; you have
illuminated the whole book thereby. The work goes
very heavily forward; I feel unwell, and soon now
returns the period of my frequent attacks. I am
afraid I shall not be ready in time. But I do not
mean to hurry. True, I have thoroughly constructed
and thoroughly studied my plan; nevertheless, if I
hurry, I may spoil the whole thing. I have quite
decided to return in the spring.

[Henceforth he writes of the journals Besyeda and
Sarya.]

1 Here is the letter D and four dots.

204 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXIV

LXIV

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
April 23 [May 5], 1871.

[In the first half of the letter Dostoevsky advises
Strachov on no account to abandon his critical
work.]

As a consequence of the colossal revolutions which
are taking place in politics as well as in the narrower
literary sphere, we behold general culture and ca-
pacity for critical judgment momentarily shattered
and undone. People have taken it into their heads
that they have no time for literature (as if literature
were a pastime fine culture, that !) ; in consequence
of which the level of literary taste is so terribly low
that no critic of to-day, however remarkable he may
be, can have his proper influence on the public.
Dobrolyubov's and Pissarev's successes really derive
from their having totally ignored any such thing
as literature, that sole domain of intellectual and
spiritual vitality here below. But one must not reckon
with such phenomena; one is bound to continue
one's critical work. Forgive my offering you advice :
but that is how I should act, were I in your place.

In one of your brochures there was a wonderful
piece of observation which nobody before you has
made, namely, that every writer of any significance,
any authentic talent, has finally yielded to national
sentiment and become a Slavophil. Thus, for
example, the facile Pushkin created, long before any
of the Slavophils, that figure of the Chronicler in
the monastery at Tchudov 1 that is to say, he

1 A scene in Pushkin's drama of " Boris Godounov."

JJT. 49] HIS SELF-CRITICISM 205

grasped, far better than all the Kireyevskys, Chom-
yakovs, etc., the inmost essence of Slavophilism.
And then, look at Herzen : what a longing, what a
need, to strike into the true path ! Only because of
his personal weaknesses did he fail to do it. Nor is
that all: this law of the conversion to nationality is
not only to be observed in writers and poets, but in
all other directions. So that one can in the end set
up yet another law: if any man has genuine talent,
he will have also that impulse to return to the people
from the crumbling upper regions of society; but if
he has no talent, he will not only remain in those
crumbling regions, but even exile himself to foreign
lands, or turn to Catholicism, or what not.

Bielinsky, whom you even to-day admire, was, as
regards talent, feeble and impotent ; therefore he con-
demned Russia and, in full consciousness of what he
was doing, reviled his native land (people will have
much to say of Bielinsky in the future, and then
you'll see). But I want only to say one thing more:
that idea which you have expressed is enormously
important, and demands further and more specialized
treatment.

Your letters give me great delight. But about
your last opinion on my novel I want to say this to
you : first, you praise far too highly those excellencies
which you find therein; second, you point with
admirable acumen to its principal fault. Yes, that
was and ever is my greatest torment I never can
control my material. Whenever I write a novel, I
crowd it up with a lot of separate stories and epi-
sodes; therefore the whole lacks proportion and
harmony. You have seen this astonishingly well;
how frightfully have I always suffered from it, for I
have always been aware that it was so. And I have
made another great mistake besides: without calcu-

206 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXV

lating my powers, I have allowed myself to be trans-
ported by poetic enthusiasm, and have undertaken an
idea to which my strength was not equal. (N.B. The
force of poetic enthusiasm is, to be sure, as for example
with Victor Hugo, always stronger than the artistic
force. Even in Pushkin one detects this dispro-
portion.) But / destroy myself thereby.

I must further add that the move to Russia and
the many anxieties which await me in the summer,
will immensely injure the novel. Anyhow, I thank
you for your sympathy. What a pity it is that we
shall not see one another for so long. In the mean-
time

I am your most devoted

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

LXV

To Nikolay Nikolayevitch Strachov

DRESDEN,
May 18 [30], 1871.

MUCH-ESTEEMED NIKOLAY NIKOLAYEVITCH,

So you really have begun your letter with
Bielinsky, as I foresaw. But do reflect on Paris and
the Commune. Will you perchance maintain, as
others do, that the whole thing failed simply because
of the lack of men, and as a result of unfavourable
circumstances ? Through the whole of this igih
century, that school has dreamed of the setting-up of
earthly paradises (for instance, the phalansteries), and
then, directly it came to action (as in the years 1848,
1849, and now), has shown a contemptible incapacity
for any practical expression of itself. At bottom, the
entire movement is but a repetition of the Russian
delusion that men can reconstruct the world by reason

JET. 49] HE CONDEMNS POSITIVISM 207

and experience (Positivism) . But we have seen enough
of it by now to be entitled to declare that such im-
potence as is displayed can be no chance phenomenon.
Why do they cut off heads ? Simply because it's the
easiest of all things to do. To say something sensible
is far more difficult. Effort is, after all, a lesser
thing than attainment. They desire the common
good, but when it comes to defining " good," can
only reiterate Rousseau's aphorism that " good " is
a fantasy never yet ratified by experience. The
burning of Paris is something utterly monstrous:
" Since we have failed, let the whole world perish !"
for the Commune is more important than the world's
weal, and France's ! Yet they (and many others) see
in that madness not monstrosity, but only beauty.
Since that is so, the aesthetic idea must be completely
clouded over in the modern mind. A moral basis
(taken from Positivist teachings) for society is not
only incapable of producing any results whatever, but
can't possibly even define itself to itself, and so must
always lose its way amid aspirations and ideals.
Have we not sufficient evidence by this time to be
able to prove that a society is not thus to be built up,
that quite otherwhere lie the paths to the common
good, and that this common good reposes on things
different altogether from those hitherto accepted ?
On what, then, does it repose ? Men write and write,
and overlook the principal point. In Western Europe
the peoples have lost Christ (Catholicism is to blame),
and therefore Western Europe is tottering to its fall.
Ideas have changed how evidently ! And the fall
of the Papal power, together with that of the whole
Romano-German world (France, etc.) what a co-
incidence !

All this would take long wholly to express, but
what I really want to say to you is: If Bielinsky,

208 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXV

Granovsky, and all the rest of the gang, had lived to
see this day, they would have said: " No, it was not
to this that we aspired ! No, this is a mistake; we
must wait a while, the light will shine forth, progress
will win, humanity will build on new and healthier
foundations, and be happy at last !" They would
never admit that their way can lead at best but to the
Commune or to Felix Pyat. That crew was so obtuse
that even now, after the event, they would not be
able to see their error, they would persist in their
fantastic dreaming. I condemn Bielinsky less as a
personality than as a most repulsive, stupid, and
humiliating phenomenon of Russian life. The best
one can say for it is that it's inevitable. I assure you
that Bielinsky would have been moved, to-day, to
take the following attitude : " The Commune has
accomplished nothing, because before all things it was
French that is to say, was steeped in nationalism.
Therefore we must now seek out another people,
which will not have the tiniest spark of national
feeling, but will be ready, like me, to box its mother's
(Russia's) ears." Wrathfully he would continue to
foam forth his wretched articles; he would go on
reviling Russia, denying Russia's greatest phenomena
(such as Pushkin), so that he might thus make Russia
seem to turn into an empty nation, which might take
the lead in universal human activities. The Jesuitry
and insincerity of our prominent public men, he would
regard as great good fortune. And then, for another
thing: you never knew him; but I had personal
intercourse with him, and now can give his full
measure. The man, talking with me once, reviled
the Saviour, and yet surely he could never have
undertaken to compare himself and the rest of the
gentry who move the world, with Christ. He was
not capable of seeing how petty, angry, impatient,

JJT. 49] BIELINSKY AND TURGENEV 209

base, and before all else covetous and vain, they,
every one of them, are. He never asked himself the
question: " But what can we put in His place ? Of
a surety not ourselves, so evil as we are ?" No; he
never reflected in any sort of way upon the possibility
that he might be evil; he was to the last degree
content with himself, and in that alone is expressed
his personal, petty, pitiable stupidity.

You declare that he was gifted. He was not, in
any way. My God, what nonsense Grigoryev did
write about him ! I can still remember my youthful
amazement when I read some of his purely aesthetic
efforts (as, for instance, on " Dead Souls ") ; he treated
Gogol's characters with incredible superficiality and
lack of comprehension, and merely rejoiced insanely
that Gogol had accused somebody. In the four years
of my sojourn here abroad, I have re-read all his
critical writings. He reviled Pushkin, when Pushkin
dropped his false note, and produced such works as
the " Tales of Bielkin," and " The Negro of Peter
the Great." He pronounced the " Tales of Bielkin "
to be entirely valueless. In Gogol's " Carriage/' he
perceived not an artistic creation, but a mere comic
tale. *He wholly abjured the conclusion of " Eugene
Onegin." He was the first to speak of Pushkin as a
courtier. He said that Turgenev would never make
an artist ; and he said that after he had read Turge-
nev's very remarkable tale of " The Three Portraits."
I could give you, on the spur of the moment, count-
less proofs that he had not an atom of critical sense,
nor that " quivering sensibility " of which Grigoryev
babbled (simply because he too was a poet) .

We regard Bielinsky and many another of our
contemporaries through the still enduring glamour of
fantastic judgments.

Did I really write you nothing about your article

14

210 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXV

on Turgenev ? I read it, as I read all your writings,
with great delight, but at the same time with some
degree of vexation. Once you had admitted that
Turgenev has lost grasp, that he has no idea what to
say about certain manifestations of Russian life (he
jeers at them, every one), you were bound to admit
as well that his artistic powers are at ebb in his recent
work for it could not be otherwise. But on the
contrary you hold that his recent work is on the
same level with his earlier. Can both statements be
accepted ? Possibly I am myself mistaken (not in
my judgment of Turgenev, but in my interpretation
of your article). Perhaps you have merely expressed
yourself confusedly. . . . Know this : all that school
is no more than " Landed-proprietor's Literature."
And that kind of literature has said all it had to say
(particularly well in the case of Leo Tolstoy). It has
spoken its last word, and is exempt from further
duty. A new school that may take its place is still
to come; we have not had time to produce it. The
Reschetnikovs 1 have said nothing. Nevertheless, the
works of a Reschetnikov demonstrate the necessity
for a new note in literature, which shall replace that
of the landed proprietors however repellently such a
writer expresses himself.

[He then speaks of his return to Petersburg and of
the Sarya.]

N.B. Dostoevsky did return to Petersburg on
July 8, 1871.

1 Reschetnikov, a novelist " with a purpose " of the 'sixties,
one of the foremost pioneers of the free-thinking " Narod-
niki " school, which advocates absorption into the people.

JET. 54] HE DEFENDS HIS " DIARY " 211

LXVI
To Mme. Ch. D. Altschevsky.

PETERSBURG,

April 9, 1876.

You write that I am squandering and abusing my
talents on bagatelles in the Diary. You are not the
first from whom I have heard that. And now I want
to say this to you and others : I have been driven to
the conviction that an artist is bound to. make himself
acquainted, down to the smallest detail, not only with
the technique of writing, but with everything cur-
rent no less than historical events relating to that
reality which he designs to show forth. We have
only one writer who is really remarkable in that
respect: it is Count Leo Tolstoy. Victor Hugo,
whom I extraordinarily admire as a novelist (only
think: Tchutchev, who is now dead, once got
positively angry with me on account of this view of
Hugo, and said that my " Raskolnikov " was much
greater than Hugo's "Mise*rables ") is certainly prone
to be too long-winded in his description of details,
but he gives us most marvellous effects of observa-
tion, which would have been lost to the world but for
him. As I am now purposing to write a very big
novel, I must devote myself most especially to the
study of actuality : I don't mean actuality in the literal
sense, for I am fairly well versed in that, but certain
peculiarities of the present moment. And in this
present moment the younger generation particularly
interests me, and, as akin to it, the question of
Russian family-life, which, to my thinking, is to-day
quite a different thing from what it was twenty years
ago. Also many other questions of the moment
interest me.

212 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXVI

At fifty-three, 1 1 might easily, were I to slacken at
all in this respect, fail to keep pace with the growing
generation. Lately I had a chance encounter with
Gontscharov, and I asked him whether all the
phenomena of the present moment were compre-
hensible to him ; he answered quite frankly that there
was much he could not understand at all. (N.B. This
between ourselves.) Of course, I know that Gonts-
charov, with his remarkable intelligence, not only
understands it all, but is competent to instruct the
instructors of the day; but in the peculiar sense in
which I put the question (and which he at once
understood) he does not even desire to grasp these
phenomena. " My ideals, and all that I have prized
in life, are far too dear to me," he added; " and for
the few years that I have yet to live, I mean to abide
by them; it would go too hard with me to study
these gentry " (he pointed to the crowd that was
flowing past us), " for I should be obliged to use up in
so doing the time which is so precious to me. ..."
I don't know if you'll understand me, revered
Christina Danilovna: I greatly desire to write some-
thing more, and to do so with complete knowledge
of my subject; for that reason I shall study a while
longer and put down my impressions in the Diary of
a Writer, so that nothing may be wasted. Of course
it's merely an ideal to which I aspire ! You won't
believe me at all, I daresay, when I declare that I
haven't yet discovered the right form for the Diary,
and don't know in the least if I shall ever really
succeed in discovering it; the Diary might perfectly
well run for two years longer, and yet be a com-
plete failure as a piece of work. For example,
imagine this: when I set to work, I always have

1 Discrepancy as to his age here, but so both in German
and French texts.

DOSTOKVSKV, PETERSBURG, 1H7.1.

JET. 54] GIRL-STUDENTS 213

from ten to fifteen themes available; but those
themes which strike me as particularly interesting, I
always save up for another time; if I make use of
them at once, they take up too much of my space,
they demand my whole energy (as, for example, in
the case of Kroneberg 1 ), and the number turns out
a bad one and so forth. Therefore I write of things
that are not at all so near to me.

On the other hand, the idea of making it a genuine
Diary was really naive in me. A genuine Diary is
almost impossible; it can only be a work cut about
to suit the public taste. Every minute I come upon
facts, receive impressions, that often carry me away
but there are some things about which one can't
possibly write. . . .

The day before yesterday, early, there come to me
quite unexpectedly two young girls, both about
twenty years old. They come and say : " We have
long wanted to make your acquaintance. Everyone
laughed at us, and declared that you would not
receive us, and that even if you did, you would not
care to talk with us. But we determined to make
the attempt, and so here we are. Our names are
so-and-so." They were first received by my wife.
I came out later.

They told me that they were students at the
Academy of Medicine, that there were at that
Academy as many as five hundred women-students,
and that they had entered there " to obtain higher
education, so as later to be able to do useful work."
I had never before seen girls of that sort (of the
earlier Nihilists I know a number, and have studied
them thoroughly). Believe me, I have seldom passed

1 Diary of a Writer, February, 1876; a sensational lawsuit
against a certain Kroneberg, who had long inhumanly treated
his seven-year-old daughter.

214 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXVI

my time so agreeably as in the company of those two
girls, who remained with me a couple of hours. Such
wonderful spontaneity, such freshness of feeling, such
purity of heart and mind, such grave sincerity, and
such sincere mirth I Through them I came, later, to
know many such girls, and must confess that the
impression they made on me was powerful and
pleasant. But how am I to describe all that ?
Despite my sincerity, and the delight with which I
regard these young people, I cannot possibly do it.
The impression was of almost too personal a nature.
But then, what impressions am I to put down in
my Diary ?

Or another instance : yesterday I heard the follow-
ing story : A young man, a student at an institution
which I do not wish to name (I happened to make
his acquaintance), is visiting friends, goes accidentally
into the tutor's room, and sees a forbidden book lying
on the table; he instantly tells the master of the
house, and the tutor is instantly dismissed. When,
in another household, someone told this young man
that he had been guilty of a base action, he could not
in the least see it. There you have the reverse of
the medal. But how am I to write about that ? The
thing is in one way of a purely personal nature; and
yet the processes of reflection, and the temper, of that
young man who cannot at all perceive the baseness of
his action, about which I should have much of interest
to say, are typical wholly, and not personal at all.

But I have written too much about all this. The
truth is, I find it terribly difficult to write letters ; I
have no talent for it. Forgive me, also, for the bad
handwriting; I have a headache, it is la grippe my
eyes have been paining me all day, and I write this
almost without seeing my characters.

*T. 54] SAYING " A LAST WORD " 215

LXVII

To Vsevolod Solovyov 1

EMS,
July, 1876.

On my departure I left several quite personal and
even pressing affairs unattended to. But here, at
this tedious spa, your letter has literally refreshed me
and gone straight to my heart ; I was already feeling
much troubled I don't myself know why it should
be so, but every time I come to Ems, I undergo
a mood of tormenting, wholly groundless, more or
less hypochondriacal, depression. Whether it arises
from my isolation in the crowd of 8,000 " patients,"
or from the climate of this place, I can't decide; but
I am always in a worse state here than almost any-
body else is. You write that you must speak with
me, and how dearly I should like to see you !

The June number of the Diary pleased you, then.
I am glad of that, and for a special reason. I had
never yet permitted myself to follow my profoundest
convictions to their ultimate consequences in my
public writing had never said my very last word.
A very intelligent correspondent in the provinces
once, indeed, reproached me for opening up so many
important questions in my Diary, yet never thoroughly
discussing them; he encouraged me, and urged me
to be more daring. So I decided that I would for
once say the last word on one of my convictions
that of Russia's part and destiny among the nations
and I proclaimed that my various anticipations
would not only be fulfilled in the immediate future,
but were already partly realized.

1 Vsevolod Solovyov, author of some popular historical
novels; brother of Vladimir Solovyov, the philosopher.

216 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXVII

And then there happened precisely what I had
expected: even those newspapers and magazines
which are friendly to me raised an outcry, saying that
my whole article was hopelessly paradoxical; while
the others bestowed not the smallest attention on it
and here am I, who believe that I have opened up
the most important of all questions ! That's what
happens when one attempts to carry an idea to its
issue ! One may set up any paradox one likes, and
so long as one doesn't carry it to its ultimate con-
clusion, everyone will think it most subtle, witty,
comme il faut; but once blurt out the last word, and
quite frankly (not by implication) declare: "This is
the Messiah !" why, nobody will believe in you any
more for it was so silly of you to push your idea to
its ultimate conclusion ! If many a famous wit, such
as Voltaire, had resolved for once to rout all hints,
allusions, and esotericisms by force of his genuine
beliefs, to show the real Himself, he would quite
certainly not have had a tithe of the success he
enjoyed. He would merely have been laughed at.
For man instinctively avoids saying his last word ; he
has a prejudice against " thoughts said."

" Once said, the thought turns lie !".*

Now you can judge for yourself how precious to
me are your friendly expressions about the June
number. For you have understood my words and
taken them exactly as I thought them myself. I
thank you for that; for I was already a little dis-
illusioned, and was reproving myself for my pre-
cipitancy. If there are but a few members of the
public who understand me as you do, I have done
what I aimed at doing, and am content my words
have not been in vain. . . . But the rest at once
1 From a poem by Tchutchev.

JET. 55] LETTERS FROM ADMIRERS 217

proclaimed with cries of joy: "He is so frightfully
paradoxical !" And the folk who say it are precisely
those who never had an idea of their own in their
lives. . . .

I remain here till August 7 (Old Style). I am
drinking the waters, and indeed would never be able
to make up my mind to endure this place were I not
convinced that the cure is really good for me. It's
certainly not worth while to describe Ems ! I have
promised the public to bring out a double number of
the Diary in August; as yet I haven't written a
single line; from sheer boredom I've got so apathetic
that I regard the work before me with reluctance, as if
it were an imminent misfortune. I already feel that
the number will be very bad. At any rate, write to
me again while I'm here, my dearest fellow. . . .

LXVIII

To Mile. Gerassimov

PETERSBURG,

March 7, 1877.

MUCH-HONOURED MLLE. GERASSIMOV !

Your letter has tormented me terribly, because
I could not answer it for so long. What can you
have thought of me ? In your dejected state, you
will perhaps have taken my silence as an affront.

You must know that I am almost overwhelmed
with work. Besides the work for the periodically
appearing Diary, I have to get through a quantity
of letters. I receive daily several letters of the same
kind as yours, which cannot possibly be disposed of
in a few lines. Moreover, I have lately suffered from
three attacks of epilepsy, and those of such violence
and quick recurrence as I have not had for years.

218 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXVIII

After each attack, I was bodily and mentally so
shattered that for two and three days I could not
work or write, or even read. Now you know that,
you will forgive my long silence.

I did not think your letter by any means childish or
stupid, as you assume. For that mood is now general,
and there are many young girls suffering like you.
But I don't mean to write much on that theme; I
shall only lay before you my fundamental ideas upon
the subject, both in general, and as it concerns you
personally. If I advise you to settle down, to stay in
your parents' house, and take up some intelligent
occupation (corresponding to the course of your
education), you won't be much inclined to listen to
me. But why are you in such a hurry, why should
you so dread any delay ? You want to do something
useful as soon as possible. And yet, with your ardour
(I am taking it for granted that it is genuine), you
could if you don't act precipitately, but pursue your
education a little longer prepare yourself for activities
which would be a hundred times more useful than the
obscure and insignificant role of a sick-nurse, midwife,
or woman-doctor. You urgently desire to enter the
Medical High School for Women here. I should like
to advise you decidedly not to do so. You will get
no education there, but quite the contrary. And
what do you gain, if you actually do become a mid-
wife or woman-doctor ? Such a callh-g if you really
do expect so much from it you could quite well
take up later on; but would it not be better now if
you pursued other ends, and took pains with your
general education ? Do but look at all our specialists
(even the University professors); why are they all
losing ground, and whence comes the harm that they
do (instead of doing good) to their own profession ?
It is simply because the majority of our specialists

JET. 55] EDUCATION 219

are shockingly ill-educated people. In other lands
it is quite different: there we find a Humboldt or
a Claude Bernard, persons with large ideas, great
culture and knowledge outside of their special job.
But with us, even highly-gifted people are incredibly
uneducated; for example, Syetchenov, 1 who at
bottom is uneducated and knows nothing beyond his
narrow special subject; of his scientific adversaries
(the philosophers) he has no notion whatever; there-
fore his scientific efforts are more harmful than
useful. And the majority of our students men and
women have no true education. How then can they
be useful to humanity ! They study only just enough
to get paid appointments as soon as may be. ...

LXIX

To A. P. N.

May 19, 1877.

MUCH-HONOURED ALEXANDER PAVLOVITCH,

Will you be so very good as to excuse my not
naving answered you for so long ? Not until to-day
have I been able to leave Petersburg for a while; I
have been terribly busy, and my illness added to my
troubles. But what am I to write to you now ? You
are intelligent enough to perceive that the questions
you put to me are abstract and nebulous; besides,
I have no personal knowledge whatever of you.
I too strove for sixteen years with doubts similar to
yours; but somehow or other I was certain that
sooner or later I should succeed in finding my true
path, and therefore did not torment myself overmuch.
It was more or less unimportant to me what position

1 A renowned Russian physiologist.

220 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXIX

I might come to occupy in literature ; in my soul was
a certain flame, and in that I believed, troubling
myself not at all as to what should come of it.
There are my experiences, since you ask me for
them.

How should I know your heart ? If you will hear
my counsel, I advise you to trust without hesitation
to your own inward impulse; perhaps destiny may
point you to a literary career. Your claims are
indeed most modest, for you .ask no more than to be
a worker of the second rank. I should like to add
this: my own youthful impulse hindered me in no
wise from taking a practical grasp of life; it is true
I was a writer, not an engineer; nevertheless, during
my whole course at the College of Engineering, from
the lowest to the highest class, I was one of the best
students; later I took a post for a while, although
I knew that sooner or later I should abandon that
career. But I saw nothing in the career itself which
could thwart that to which I aspired; I was even
more convinced than before that the future belonged
to me, and that I alone should control it. In the
same way, if an official position does not hinder you
in the pursuit of your literary vocation, why should
you not temporarily undertake such an one ?

Naturally I write all this at random, since I do not
know you personally; but I want to be of service to
you, and so answer your letter as frankly as possible.
As to all the rest, it is, in great part, exaggeration.

Permit me to press your hand.

Your
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

JJT. 56] THE BIBLE 221

LXX

To N. L. Osmidov

PETERSBURG,

February, 1878.

MY DEAR AND KIND NlKOLAY LUKITCH,

Let me beg you, first, to forgive my having,
by reason of illness and various bothers, taken so long
to answer you. In the second place, what can I say
in reply to your momentous question, which belongs
to the eternal problem of humanity ? Can one treat
such matters in the narrow compass of a letter ? If
I could talk with you for some hours, it would be a
different thing; and even then I might well fail to
achieve anything. Least of all by words and argu-
ments does one convert an unbeliever. Would it not
be better if you would read, with your best possible
attention, all the epistles of St. Paul ? Therein much
is said of faith, and the question could not be better
handled. I recommend you to read the whole Bible
through in the Russian translation. The book makes
a remarkable impression when one thus reads it. One
gains, for one thing, the conviction that humanity
possesses, and can possess, no other book of equal
significance. Quite apart from the question of
whether you believe or don't believe. I can't give
you any sort of idea. But I'll say just this: Every
single organism exists on earth but to live not to
annihilate itself. Science has made this clear, and
has laid down very precise laws upon which to ground
the axiom. Humanity as a whole is, of course, no
less than an organism. And that organism has,
naturally, its own conditions of existence, its own

222 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXX

laws. Human reason comprehends those laws. Now
suppose that there is no God, and no personal immor-
tality (personal immortality and God are one and the
same an identical idea). Tell me then: Why am I
to live decently and do good, if I die irrevocably here
below ? If there is no immortality, I need but live
out my appointed day, and let the rest go hang.
And if that's really so (and if I am clever enough not
to let myself be caught by the standing laws), why
should I not kill, rob, steal, or at any rate live at the
expense of others ? For I shall die, and all the rest
will die and utterly vanish ! By this road, one would
reach the conclusion that the human organism alone
is not subject to the universal law, that it lives but to
destroy itself not to keep itself alive. For what sort
of society is one whose members are mutually
hostile ? Only utter confusion can come of such a
thing as that. And then reflect on the " I " which
can grasp all this. If the " I " can grasp the idea of
the universe and its laws, then that " I " stands
above all other things, stands aside from all other
things, judges them, fathoms them. In that case,
the "I" is not only liberated from the earthly
axioms, the earthly laws, but has its own law, which
transcends the earthly. Now, whence comes that
law ? Certainly not from earth, where all reaches its
issue, and vanishes beyond recall. Is that no indi-
cation of personal immortality ? If there were no
personal immortality, would you, Nikolay Lukitch,
be worrying yourself about it, be searching for an
answer, be writing letters like this ? So you can't
get rid of your " I, "you see; your " I "will not subject
itself to earthly conditions, but seeks for something
which transcends earth, and to which it feels itself
akin. But whatever I write falls short altogether
as it must. I cordially press your hand, and take

DOSTOEVSKY'S STUDY IN PETERSBURG.

MI. 56] A PERPLEXING MOTHER 223

my leave. Remain in your unrest seek farther it
may be that you shall find.

Your servant and true friend,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXI

To a Mother

PETERSBURG,

March 27, 1878.

MUCH-HONOURED LADY !

Your letter of February 2nd I am answering
only to-day, after a month's delay. I was ill and
very much occupied, and so beg you not to take
amiss this dilatoriness.

You set me problems which one could treat only
in long essays, and assuredly not in a letter. More-
over, life itself can alone give any answer to such
questions. If I were to write you ten sheets, some
misunderstanding, which would easily be cleared up
in a verbal interview, might cause you to take me
up quite wrongly, and therefore to abjure my whole
ten sheets. Can one, in general, when wholly un-
acquainted, and especially in a letter, treat of such
matters at all ? I consider it quite impossible, and
believe that it may do more harm than good.

From your letter I gather that you are a good
mother, and are very anxious about your growing
child. I cannot, though, at all imagine of what
service to you would prove the solution of the
questions with which you have turned to me: you
set yourself too hard a task, and your perplexities are
exaggerated and morbid. You should take things
much more simply. You ask me, for instance, " What
is good, and what is not good ?" To what do such
questions lead ? They concern you alone, and have

324 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXI

nothing whatever to do with the bringing-up of your
child. Every human being, who can grasp the truth
at all, feels in his conscience what is good and what
is evil. Be good, and let your child realize that you
are good; in that way you will wholly fulfil your
duty towards your child, for you will thus give him
the immediate conviction that people ought to be
good. Believe me, it is so. Your child will then
cherish your memory all his life with great reverence,
it may be often with deep emotion as well. And even if
you do something wrong that is, something frivolous,
morbid, or even absurd your child will sooner or
later forget all about it, and remember only the good
things. Mark me: in general, you can do no more
than this for your child. And it is really more than
enough. The memory of our parents' good qualities
of their love of truth, their rectitude, their goodness
of heart, of their freedom from false shame and their
constant reluctance to deceive all this will sooner or
later make a new creature of your child: believe me.
And do not think that this is a small thing. When
we graft a tiny twig on a great tree, we alter all the
fruits of the tree thereby.

Your child is now eight years old ; make him
acquainted with the Gospel, teach him to believe in
God, and that in the most orthodox fashion. This is a
sine qua non ; otherwise you can't make a fine human
being out of your child, but at best a sufferer, and at
worst a careless lethargic " success," which is a still
more deplorable fate. You will never find anything
better than the Saviour anywhere, believe me.

Suppose now that your child at sixteen or seventeen
(after some intercourse with corrupted school-friends)
comes to you or to its father, and puts this question :
" Why am I to love you, and why do you represent
it as my duty ?" Believe me : no sort of " questions "

XT. 56] " NO SENSE OF MODERATION " 225

or knowledge will help you then; you won't be able
to give any answer. Therefore it is that you must
try to act so that it will never once occur to your child
to come to you with that question. But that will be
possible only if your child is attached to you by such
love as would prevent such a question from ever
coming into, its head; true, that at school such views
may be for a while your child's, but you will find it
easy to separate the false from the true; and even if
you should really have to listen to that question, you
will be able to answer with just a smile, and quietly
go on doing well.

If you grow superfluously and exaggeratedly
anxious about your children, you may easily affect
their nerves and become a nuisance to them; and
that might happen even though your mutual love
were great ; therefore you must be careful and
cultivate moderation in all things. It seems to me
that in this respect you have no sense at all of
moderation. In your letter, for example, occurs the
following sentence: " If I live for them (that is, my
husband and children), it is an egotistic life; dare I
live thus egotistically, when all round me are so
many people who need my help?" What an idle
and unprofitable thought ! What hinders you from
living for others, and yet remaining a good wife and
mother ? On the contrary : if you live for others
also and share with them your earthly goods and the
emotions of your heart, you set your children a
radiant example, and your husband will necessarily
love you still better than before. But since such
questions come into your head at all, I must assume
that you consider it to be your duty so to cleave to
your husband and your children that thereby you
forget all the rest of the world that is to say, with-
out any moderation. In that way you could but

15

226 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXI

become a burden to your child, even if it loved you.
It may easily befall that your sphere of activity will
suddenly seem to you too narrow, and that you will
aspire to a wider one, perhaps a world- wide one.
But has anyone at all any right to aspire to that ?

Believe me : it is uncommonly important and
useful to set a good example even in a narrow sphere
of activity, for in that way one influences dozens and
hundreds of people. Your purpose, never to lie but
to live in truth, will make those who surround you
think, thus influencing them. That in itself is a great
deed. In such ways you can do an enormous
amount. It were truly senseless to throw all aside,
and rush with such questions to Petersburg, meaning
thereafter to enter the Academy of Medicine or the
High School for Women. I meet here daily such
women and girls; what frightful narrowness I see in
them ! And all who once were good for something
are ruined here. Seeing no serious activity in their
environment, they begin to love humanity theoretic-
ally, by the book as it were ; they love humanity, and
scorn the individual unfortunate, are bored in his
company, and therefore avoid him.

I really don't know how I am to answer your
questions, for I don't understand these matters at all.
When a child betrays an evil character, it is of course
attributable to the evil tendencies which are inborn in
him (it is beyond doubt that every human being is
born with evil tendencies), as well as to those who
have his bringing-up in hand, and are either incapable
or lazy, so that they neither suppress those tendencies
nor (by their own example) lead them into other
directions. Of the usefulness of that work I really
need not speak. If you inculcate good propensities
in your child, the work will bring its own delight.
Now enough: I have written you a lot, and have

;ET. 56] THE MOSCOW STUDENTS 227

tired myself, yet have really said little; but you will
no doubt understand me.
With all respect, your most obedient servant,

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

P.S. Peter the Great, with his revenue of one
and a half millions, might well have led an easy
lethargic existence at the Tsar's Palace in Moscow;
and yet he worked hard all his life. He always
wondered at those who do not work.

LXXII

To a Group of Moscow Students*-

PETERSBURG,

April 1 8, 1878.

MUCH-HONOURED GENTLEMEN,

Forgive my not having answered you for so
long; I was definitely ill, and other circumstances
besides delayed my answer. I wished, originally, to
reply to you through the newspapers ; but it appeared
that, for reasons against which I am powerless, this
was not feasible; and, anyhow, I could not have
treated your questions with the necessary circum-
stantiality in the press. But indeed, what can I
say to you in any kind of a letter ? Your questions
touch upon the whole interior life of Russia: do you
want me to write you a book ? Am I to make you
my full confession of faith ?

Well, finally I have decided to write you this
short letter, wherein I risk being completely mis-

1 On April 3, 1878, students demonstrating against the
arrest of some colleagues at Kiev, were assaulted and beaten
in the public streets by the butchers (the Moscow meat-
market is near the University). A group of the students
appealed to Dostoevsky in a letter of protest.

228 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXII

understood by you a result which would be most
painful to me.

You write: " It is of paramount importance that
we should solve the problem of how far we are to
blame in the affair, and what conclusions society,
no less than we ourselves, should draw from these
incidents ?"

You go on to indicate very adroitly and precisely
the true significance of the relations between the con-
temporary Russian press and the younger generation
at the Universities.

In our press there prevails (with regard to you) " a
tone of condescension and indulgence." That is very
true ; the tone is indeed condescending, and fashioned
in advance upon a certain pattern, no matter what
the case; in short, it is to the last degree insipid and
antiquated.

You write further: " Plainly we have nothing
more to expect from these people, who for their part
expect nothing more from us, and so turn away,
having pronounced their annihilating judgment of
us as ' savages.' '

That also is true: they do indeed turn away from
you, and dismiss you, for the most part, from their
thoughts (at any rate, the overwhelming majority do
so). But there are men, and those not few in
number both on the press and in society, who are
horribly perturbed by the thought that the younger
generation has broken with the people (this, first in
importance) and with society. For such is actually
the case. The younger generation lives in dreams,
follows foreign teaching, cares to know nothing that
concerns Russia, aspires, rather, to instruct the
fatherland. Consequently it is to-day beyond all
doubt that our younger generation is become the
prey of one or other of those political parties which

JBT. 55] THE YOUNGER GENERATION 229

influence it wholly from outside, which care not at
all for its interests, but use it simply as a contribution
as it were lambs for the slaughter to their own
particular ends. Do not contradict me, gentlemen,
for it is so.

You ask me, gentlemen: " How far are we students
to blame for the incidents ?" Here is my answer: I
hold that you are in no wise to blame. For you are
but children of the very society from which you now
turn away, as from " an utter fraud." But when one
of our students thus abjures society, he does not go
to the people, but to a nebulous " abroad "; he flees
to Europeanism, to the abstract realm of fantastic
" Universal Man," thus severing all the bonds which
still connect him with the people: he scorns the
people and misjudges them, like a true child of that
society with which he likewise has broken. And
yet with the people lies our whole salvation (but
this is a big subject). . . . Nevertheless, the younger
generation should not be too harshly blamed for this
rupture with the people. What earthly opportunity
has it had, before entering on practical life, to form
any ideas whatever about the people ? The worst of
it is, though, that the people has already perceived
that the younger Russian intelligences have broken
with it; and still worse again is the fact that those
young men whom it has marked down, are by it
designated as " students." The people have long, so
long as from the beginning of the 'sixties, been watch-
ful of these young men; all those among them who
" went to the people " have been abhorred by the
people. The people call them " these young gentle-
men." I know for certain that they are so called. As
a matter of fact, the people also are wrong, for there
has never yet been a period in our Russian life when
the young men (as if with a foreboding that Russia

230 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXII

has reached a certain critical point, and is on the
edge of an abyss) were, in the overwhelming majority
of cases, so honest, so avid for the truth, so joyfully
willing to devote their lives to truth, and every word
that truth can speak, as they are now. In ye is
veritably the great hope of Russia ! I have long felt
it, and have already long been writing in that sense.
But what has come of it now, all at once ? Youth is
seeking that truth of which it is so avid God knows
where ! At the most widely diverse sources (another
point in which it resembles the utterly decadent
Russo-European society which has produced it) ; but
never in the people, never in its native soil. The
consequence is that, at the given decisive moment,
neither society nor the younger generation knows the
people. Instead of living the life of the people, these
young men, who understand the people in no wise,
and profoundly scorn its every fundamental principle
for example, its religion go to the people not to
learn to know it, but condescendingly to instruct and
patronize it: a thoroughly aristocratic game! The
people call them " young gentlemen," and rightly.
It is really very strange; all over the world, the
democrats have ever been on the side of the people;
with us alone have the democratic intellectuals
leagued themselves with the aristocrats against the
people; they go among the people "to do it good,"
while scorning all its customs and ideals. Such scorn
cannot possibly lead to love !

Last winter, at your demonstration before the
Kazan Cathedral, 1 the rank and file forced their way
into the church, smoked cigarettes, desecrated the
temple, and made a scandal. " Now listen to me,"
I should have said to those students (I have said it to
many of them, as a matter of fact), " you do not

1 The Cathedral of Our Lady, at Kazan in Petersburg.

JET. 55] " YOUNG GENTLEMEN " 231

believe in God, and that is your own affair ; but why
do you insult the people by desecrating its temple ?"
The people once more retorted with its " young
gentlemen," and, far worse, with " students " though
there were numbers of obscure Jews and Armenians
among the offenders (the demonstration was, as we
now know, a political one, and organized from out-
side). In the same way, after the Sassulitch 1 case,
the people dubbed all the revolver-heroes " young
gentlemen." That is bad, though there actually were
students among them. Bad is it too that the people
should have marked down the students, and should
treat them maliciously and inimically. You your-
selves, gentlemen, in accord with the intellectual
press, designate the people of Moscow as " butchers."
What may that mean ? Why are " butchers " not
members of the people ? They are, and of the true
people; was not the great Minin 2 a butcher ? Many
are at this moment enraged by the manner in which
the people has chosen to express its feelings. But
mark this: when the people is offended, it always
manifests its emotion in that manner. The people is
rough, for it consists of peasants. The whole thing
was in reality but the breaking out of a misunder-
standing which has existed, time out of mind (and
has hitherto been merely unperceived), between the
people and society, that is to say, the younger genera-
tion, which stands for fieriness and rash impulses.
The thing certainly was very ill done, and not at all
as it ought to have been, for with fists one can
demonstrate nothing. But so it has been ever and
everywhere, with every people. The English often
come to blows at their public meetings; the French

1 Vera Sassulitch, a notorious Terrorist, was tried for a
political crime, but was acquitted by the jury.
8 Minin was a national hero in the interregnum of 1610-13.

232 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXII

sang and danced before the guillotine, while it did its
work. But the fact remains that the people (the
whole people, not only the "butchers"; it is poor
consolation to call names) has revolted against the
3'ounger generation, and has marked down the
students; on the other hand, it is true, we must
acknowledge the no less perturbing fact (and very
significant it is) that the press, society, and the young
men have conspired to misjudge the people, and to
say: " This is no people, but a mob."

Gentlemen, if you find anything in my words which
contravenes your views, your best plan will be not to
get angry with me about it. There is trouble enough
without that. In our putrid society, nothing reigns
but sheer deception. It can no longer hold together
by its own strength. The people alone is strong and
steadfast, but between society and the people there
have reigned for the last ten years most terrible mis-
understandings. When our sentimentalists freed the
people from serfdom, they believed, in full tide of
emotion, that the people would instantly take to its
bosom that European fraud which they call civilization.
But the people showed itself to be very independent,
and now it is beginning to realize the insincerity of
the upper stratum in our society. The events of the
last couple of years have but strengthened it, and
made many things clear to its eyes. Nevertheless,
the people can distinguish between its enemies and
its friends. Assuredly many sad and deplorable facts
must be recognized: sincere, honest young men,
earnestly seeking the truth, went on their quest to
the people, trying to alleviate its woes. And what
happened ? The people drove them away, and refused
to recognize their honest efforts. For those young
men hold the people to be otherwise than as it
is ; they hate and despise its ideals, and offer it

JET. 55] THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 233

remedies which it cannot but regard as senseless and
crazy.

With us in Petersburg the devil is indeed let
loose. Among the young men reigns the cult of the
revolver, and the conviction that the Government is
afraid of them. The people, now as ever, despises the
young men, and reckons not at all with them; but
they do not perceive that the people has no fear of
them and will never lose its head. What, when
another encounter takes place, will come of it ?
Gentlemen, we live in disquieting times !

I have written you,- gentlemen, what I could. At
any rate I have, though not sufficiently at length,
answered your question: In my view, the students
are in no wise to blame, but the contrary ; our youth
was never yet so sincere and honest as now (a fact
which has its significance, great and historical). But
unhappily our youth bears about with it the whole
delusion of our two centuries of history. Conse-
quently it has not the power thoroughly to sift the
facts, and is in no sense to blame, particularly as it
is an interested party in the affair (and, moreover,
the offended party) . Blessed, none the less, be those
who shall find the right path in these circumstances !
The breach with environment is bound to be much
more decisive than the breach between the society of
to-day and to-morrow, which the Socialists prophesy.
For if one wants to go to the people and remain with
the people, one must first of all learn not to scorn
the people; and this it is well-nigh impossible for our
upper class to do. In the second place, one must
believe in God, which is impossible for Russian
Europeans (though the genuine Europeans of Europe
do believe in God).

I greet you, gentlemen, and, if you will permit me,
grasp your hands. If you want to do me a great

234 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXIII

pleasure, do not, for God's sake, regard me as a
preacher who sets up to lecture you. You have
called upon me to tell you the truth with my soul
and conscience, and I have told you the truth as I
see it, and as best I can. For no man can do more
than his powers and capacities permit him.
Your devoted

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXIII

To Mile. N. N.

PETERSBURG,

April ii, iSSo.

MUCH-HONOURED AND GRACIOUS LADY,

Forgive my having left your beautiful kind
letter unanswered for so long; do not regard it as
negligence on my part. I wanted to say something
very direct and cordial to you, but my life goes by,
I vow, in such disorder and hurry that it is only at
rare moments that I belong to myself at all. Even
now, when at last I have a moment in which to write
to you, I shall be able to impart but a tiny fragment
of all that fills my heart, and that I should like to
touch upon with you. Your opinion of me is extra-
ordinarily precious to me; your lady-mother has
shown me the passage in your letter to her which
relates to myself, and your words moved me pro-
foundly, nay ! even astonished me : for I know that
as a writer I have many faults, and even I myself am
never satisfied with myself. I must tell you that in
those frequent and grievous moments wherein I seek
to judge myself, I come to the painful conclusion that
in my works I never have said so much as the
twentieth part of what I wished to say, and perhaps

DOSTOKVSKY, 1'KTKRSHURG, 1879.

i. 58] AN ADMIRER 235

could, actually, have said. My only refuge is the
constant hope that God will some day bestow upon
me such inspiration and such power as are requisite
to bring to full expression all that fills my heart and
imagination. Recently there took place here the
public debate by the young philosopher Vladimir
Solovyov (a son of the renowned historian) of his
thesis for Doctor's degree; and I heard him make
the following profound remark: " I am firmly con-
vinced that mankind knows much more than it has
hitherto expressed either in science or art." Just so
it is with me : I feel that much more is contained in
me than I have as yet uttered in my writings. And
if I lay all false modesty aside, I must acknowledge
that even in what I have written, there is much that
came from the very depth of my heart. I swear to
you that though I have received much recognition,
possibly more than I deserve, still the critics, the
literary newspaper critics, who certainly have often
(no, rather, very seldom) praised me, nevertheless
have always spoken of me so lightly and superficially
that I am obliged to assume that all those things
which my heart brought forth with pain and tribula-
tion, and which came directly from my soul, have
simply passed unperceived. From this you can
divine what a pleasant impression must have been
made upon me by the delicate and searching com-
ments on my work which I read in your letter to
your lady-mother.

But I am writing only of myself, which after all in
a letter to the discerning and sympathetic critic whom
I perceive in you is natural enough. You write
to me of the phase which your mind is just now
undergoing. I know that you are an artist a painter.
Permit me to give you a piece of advice which truly
comes from my heart: stick to your art, and give

236 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXIII

yourself up to it even more than hitherto. I know,
for I have heard (do not take this ill of me) that you
are not happy. To live alone, and continually to
reopen the wounds in your heart by dwelling upon
memories, may well make your life too drear for
endurance. There is but one cure, one refuge, for
that woe: art, creative activity. But do not put it
upon yourself to write me your confession : that would
assuredly tax you too far. Forgive me for offering
you advice; I should very much like to see you and
say a few words face to face. After the letter that
you have written, I must necessarily regard you as
one dear to me, as a being akin to my soul, as my
heart's sister how could I fail to feel with you ?
But now to what you have told me of your inward
duality. That trait is indeed common to all ...
that is, all who are not wholly commonplace. Nay,
it is common to human nature, though it does not
evince itself so strongly in all as it does in you. It
is precisely on this ground that I cannot but regard
you as a twin soul, for your inward duality corre-
sponds most exactly to my own. It causes at once
great torment, and great delight. Such duality
simply means that you have a strong sense of your-
self, much aptness for self-criticism, and an innate
feeling for your moral duty to yourself and all man-
kind. If your intelligence were less developed, if you
were more limited, you would be less sensitive, and
would not possess that duality. Rather the reverse :
in its stead would have appeared great arrogance.
Yet such duality is a great torment. My dear, my
revered Mile. N. N., do you believe in Christ and in
His commandments ? If you believe in Him (or at
least have a strong desire to do so) , then give yourself
wholly up to Him; the pain of your duality will be
thereby alleviated, and you will find the true way

JST. 58] HIS SPEECH AT MOSCOW 237

out but belief is first of all in importance. Forgive
the untidiness of my letter. If you only knew how
I am losing the capacity to write letters, and what a
difficulty I find it ! But having gained such a friend
as you, I don't wish to lose her in a hurry.

Farewell. Your most devoted and heartfelt
friend,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXIV
To Frau E. A. Stackenschneider

STARAYA-ROUSSA,

July 17, 1880.

MUCH-ESTEEMED ELENA ANDREYEVNA,

I must call upon all your humanity and in-
dulgence when I ask you to forgive me for having
left your beautiful kind letter of June 19 so long
unanswered. But I shall beg you to consider facts;
you may then perhaps find it in your power to be
indulgent even to me. On June n I returned from
Moscow to Staraya-Roussa, was frightfully tired, but
sat down at once to the " Karamazovs," and wrote
three whole sheets at one blow. After I had sent off
the MS., I applied myself to the reading of all the news-
paper articles that dealt with my speech at Moscow
(I had been so busy till then that I had had no time
for them), and I decided to write a rejoinder to
Granovsky; it was to be not so much an answer to
him as a manifesto of our faith for all Russia : for the
significant and moving crisis in the life of our society
which declared itself at Moscow, during the Pushkin
celebrations, was deliberately misrepresented by the
press, and thrust of set purpose into the background.
Our press, particularly that of Petersburg, was

238 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXIV

alarmed by this new development, which is indeed
without parallel: society has plainly shown that it
has had enough of the everlasting jeering and spitting
at Russia, and is consequently desirous of something
different. But that fact had of course to be distorted,
hushed-up, laughed at, misrepresented: " Nothing of
the sort ! It was but the general beatitude after
the opulent Moscow banquets. The gentlemen had
simply over-eaten themselves. " I had already decided,
at Moscow, to publish my speech in the Moskovskoie
Viedomosti, 1 and to bring out a number of the Diary
immediately afterwards in Petersburg; in that
number, which, by-the-bye, will be the only one
this year, I thought of printing my speech, with a
preamble, moreover, which occurred to me the very
instant I had finished speaking on the platform
itself, at the moment when, together with Aksakov
and the rest, even Turgenev and Annenkov rushed
up to cover me with kisses, and then shook hands
with me, protesting over and over again that I had
done great things. God grant they're of the same
opinion still !

I can vividly imagine how they now criticize my
speech, having recovered from their first enthusiasm
and indeed this is precisely the theme of my
preamble. When the speech, with the preamble, had
been sent to the printers in Petersburg, nay, when I
actually had the proofs in my hands, I suddenly
resolved to write yet another chapter for the Diary
in the shape of my profession de foi for Granovsky ;
it grew into two sheets, I put my whole soul into
the article, and have sent it to the printers only
this very day. Yesterday was Fedya's birthday.
We had visitors, but I sat apart and finished the
article. So you see that you must not take it ill that
1 The Moscow News.

^T. 58] TURGENEV'S INSULT 239

I am answering your letter only now. I dearly love
you, as you well know ! I could never give my
Moscow impressions in a letter, still less my present
state of mind. I am filled up with work it is real
hard labour. I want to have the fourth and last part
of " The Brothers Karamazov " ready in September
at all costs, and when I return to Petersburg in the
autumn, I shall be comparatively free for a while ; in
that clear time I want to get myself ready for the
Diary, with which I propose to go on in the coming
year 1881.

Are you on a summer holiday ? How did the
Moscow news reach you ? I don't know what
Gayevsky may have told you, but the affair with
Katkov was not a bit like what you think. The
Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, which
organized the festival, seriously insulted Katkov by
asking him to return the invitation-card which he
had originally received ; Katkov had made his speech
at the banquet held by the Town Council, and at the
Town Council's request. Turgenev had no grounds
whatever for anticipating any affront from Katkov;
Katkov was much more justified in dreading some
sort of annoyance. For Turgenev there had been
prepared so colossal a reception (by Kovalevsky and
the University people) that he really had nothing to
fear. Turgenev insulted Katkov first. When, after
Katkov's speech, such men as Ivan Aksakov went up
to clink glasses with him (even his opponents did
that), Katkov stretched out his hand with the glass
in it to Turgenev, that they, too, might clink; but
Turgenev drew his hand away, and would not. So
Turgenev himself told me.

You ask me to send you my speech. But I have
not a single transcript of it, and the only copy is at
the printers, where the Diary is now being set up.

240 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXV

The Diary will appear about August 5 ; bestow
some attention on that number, and show it, also,
to my dear collaborator, Andrey Andreyevitch. I
should like to hear his opinion too.

Your devoted

DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXV
To N. L. Osmidov

STARAYA-ROUSSA,

August 1 8, 1880.

MUCH-ESTEEMED NIKOLAY LUKITCH !

I have read your letter very attentively; but
how am I to answer it ? You remark yourself, most
justly, that one can't really say anything at all in a
letter. I too am of opnion that one can deal only
with quite ordinary matters in any satisfactory way.
But besides that, it really would be idle for you to
come even personally for advice to me, for I don't
consider myself competent to resolve your questions.
You write that hitherto you have given your
daughter nothing that is purely literary to read, lest
her fancy should become over-developed. This does
not appear to me entirely a right point of view; for
fancy is an unborn capacity of human beings ; in
a child, it outweighs all othtrs, and should most
undoubtedly be nourished. For if we give a child's
imagination no nourishment, it may easily die out,
or, on the other hand, may over-develop itself from
its own sheer force, which is no less undesirable.
For such an abnormal over-development prematurely
exhausts the child's mental powers. And impres-
sions of the beautiful, moreover, are precisely in
childhood of the greatest importance.

JET. 58] CHILDISH IMAGINATION 241

When I was ten years old, I saw at Moscow a
performance of "Die Rauber," 1 with Motchalov in
one of the chief parts, and I can only say that the
deep impression which that performance made upon
me has worked most fruitfully ever since upon my
whole mental development. At twelve, I read right
through Walter Scott during the summer holidays;
certainly such reading did extraordinarily stimulate
my imagination and sensibility, but it led them into
good, not evil, paths; I got from it many fine and
noble impressions, which gave my soul much power
of resistance against others which were seductive,
violent, and corrupting. So I advise you to give
your daughter now the works of Walter Scott, and
all the more, because he is for the moment neglected
by us Russians, and your daughter, when she is older,
will have neither opportunity nor desire to make
acquaintance with that great writer ; therefore hasten
now, while she is still in her parents' house, to intro-
duce him to her. Besides, Walter Scott has a high
educational value. She should also read all Dickens's
works without exception. Make her acquainted, too,
with the literature of past centuries (" Don Quixote,"
" Gil Bias," etc.). It would be best for her to begin
with poetry. She should read all Pushkin, verse as
well as prose. Gogol likewise. If you like, Turgenev
and Gontscharov as well; as to my own works, I don't
think that all of them are suitable for your daughter.
It would be well for her to read Schlosser's " Welt-
geschichte," and Solovyov's Russian history; nor
should she omit Karamsin. Don't give her Kosto-
marov as yet. The " Conquest of Peru and Mexico "
by Prescott is most necessary. In general, historical
works have immense educational value. She should
read Leo Tolstoy all through; also Shakespeare,

1 A tragedy by Schiller.

16

242 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXVI

Schiller, and Goethe; these writers are to be had in
good Russian translations. That will be enough for
the present. With time, in a few years, you will see
yourself that there is much besides. Journalistic
reading should, in the beginning at any rate, be kept
from her. I don't know if my advice will commend
itself to you. I write after much reflection, and out
of my own personal experience. I shall be very glad
if it is really of use to you. I think a personal visit
from you is quite superfluous at present, and the
more, because I am very much occupied. But I
must say once again that I am not particularly com-
petent in such matters.

The number of the Diary that you asked for has
been sent to you. It comes, with postage, to 35
kopecks; so the balance of 65 kopecks stands to
your credit with me.

Yours truly and faithfully,

F. DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXVI

To I. S. Aksakov

STARAYA-ROUSSA,

August 28, 1880.
MY DEAR AND HONOURED IVAN SERGEYEVITCH,

I meant to answer your first letter by return,
and now, having received your second, so precious to
me, I see that I have a great deal to say to you.
Never yet in my life have I found a critic who was so
sincere, and so very sympathetic for my work. I had
almost forgotten that there could be such critics, and
that they actually exist. I don't mean to say by this
that I see absolutely eye-to-eye with you in all things,
but I must, at any rate, point out the following fact :

DOSTOKVSKY, MOSCOW, 1880.

JET. 59] HIS LAST NOVEL 243

Although I have been issuing my Diary for two years
now, and consequently have some experience, I am
still beset by doubts in many respects as to what
I am to say about certain matters, what tone I am to
adopt, and on what subjects I should keep silence
altogether. Your letter came just in such a moment
of hesitation, for I have firmly resolved to continue
my Diary in the coming year, and so I am much
perturbed, and often put up my prayer to Him on
whom one should ever call for the needful strength,
and above all the needful ability. Thus it peculiarly
rejoices me to have you; for now I see that I can
impart to you at least a portion of my questionings,
and that you can always answer me with something
most frank and far-seeing. This conviction I have
gained from your two last letters. Unfortunately
I should have to write you a lot about all this, and
just now I am very busy, and not at all inclined for
letters. You simply can't imagine how frightfully
busy I am, day and night ; it is real hard labour !
For I am now finishing the " Karamazovs," and con-
sequently summing up the entire work, which is
personally very dear to me, for I have put a great
deal of my inmost self into it. I work, in general,
very nervously, with pain and travail of soul. When-
ever I am writing, I am physically ill. And now
I have to sum up all that I have pondered, gathered,
set down, in the last three years. I must make this
work good at all costs, or at least as good as / can.
I simply don't know how anyone can write at great
speed, and only for the money's sake. Now the time
is come when I must wind up this novel, and that
without delay. You will hardly believe me : many a
chapter, for which I had been making notes all
those three years, I was obliged, after finally setting
it down, to reject, and write anew. Only separate

244 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXVII

passages, which were directly inspired by enthusiasm,
came off at first writing; all the rest was hard work.
For these reasons I can't possibly write to you at the
moment, despite my ardent desire; I am not in the
requisite state of mind, and moreover I do not wish
to dissipate my energies. I shall not be able to write
to you until about September 10, when I shall have
the work behind me. In the meantime, I shall
thoroughly ponder my letter, for the questions in
hand are weighty, and I want to present them as
lucidly as may be. So do not be angry with me, nor
accuse me of indifference; if you only knew what an
error that would be on your part !

In the meantime I embrace you, and thank you
from my heart. I need you, and must therefore
love you.

Your truly devoted
* F. DOSTOEVSKY.

LXXVII

To Doctor A- F. Blagonravov 1

PETERSBURG,

December 19, 1880.

HONOURED ALEXANDER FYODOROVITCH,

I thank you for your letter. You judge very
rightly when you opine that I hold all evil to be
grounded upon disbelief, and maintain that he who
abjures nationalism, abjures faith also. That applies
especially to Russia, for with us national con-
sciousness is based on Christianity. " A Christian

* Doctor Blagonravov had given Dostoevsky his opinion
(from a physician's point of view) upon the masterly descrip-
tion of the hallucination of Ivan Karamazov in the last part
of the novel.

JET. 59] NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 245

peasant-people " ; " believing Russia " : these are our
fundamental conceptions. A Russian who abjures
nationalism (and there are many such) is either an
atheist or indifferent to religious questions. And the
converse : an atheist or indifferentist cannot possibly
understand the Russian people and Russian nation-
alism. The essential problem of our day is : How are
we to persuade our educated classes of this principle ?
If one but utters a word in such a sense, one will
either be devoured alive, or denounced as a traitor.
And whom shall one have betrayed ? Truly, naught
but a party which has lost touch with reality, and for
which not even a label can be found, for they know
not themselves what to call themselves. Or is it
the people whom one shall have betrayed ? No ; for
I desire with the people to abide, for only from the
people is anything worth while to be looked for not
from the educated class, which abjures the people,
and is not even " educated."

But a new generation is on the way, which will
desire union with the people. The first sign of true
fellowship with the people is veneration and love for
that which the great mass of the people loves and
venerates that is to say, for its God and its faith.

This new Russian intelligence is beginning, as it
seems to me, to lift its head, and precisely now is its
co-operation in the common task essential; and this
it is coming, itself, to perceive.

Because I preach faith in God and in the people,
the gentry here would like to see me disappear from
the face of the earth. Because of that chapter in the
" Karamazovs " (of the hallucination) with which you,
as a physician, are so pleased, it has already been
sought to stamp me as a reactionary and fanatic,
who has come to believe in the Devil. The gentle-
men here, in their simplicity, imagine that the public

246 DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS [LXXVJI

will cry out with one voice: " What ? Dostoevsky
has begun to write about the Devil now, has he ?
How obsolete and borne he is !" But I believe that
they will find themselves mistaken. I thank you for
having, as a physician, attested for me the authen-
ticity of my description of the psychical sickness of
my hero. The opinion of one who is an expert in
the matter is very valuable to me ; you will, I doubt
not, allow that Ivan Karamazov, in the given circum-
stances, could have had no different hallucination.
I mean to give, in the very next number of the
Diary, some of the critical pronouncements on that
particular chapter.

With the assurance of my sincere respect, I
remain

Yours most faithfully,

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.

Recollections of Dostoevsky

by his Friends

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF
D. V. GRIGOROVITCH

18371846

IT is a mystery to me to this day how I, innately the
most extraordinarily nervous and timid of boys, ever
got through my first year in the College of Engineer-
ing, where one's comrades were far more ruthless and
cruel even than one's teachers.

Amongst the young men who were admitted to
the College after I had been there about a year, was a
youth of some seventeen summers, of middle height,
full figure, blond hair, and sickly, pale countenance.
This youth was Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky.
He had come from Moscow to Petersburg with his
elder brother Michael. The latter did not enter the
College, but joined the Corps of Sappers, and was
later sent to Reval on his promotion to commis-
sioned rank. Many years later Michael Dostoevsky
took his discharge, and returned to Petersburg.
There he started a cigarette manufactory, but at the
same time busied himself in literature, translated
Goethe, wrote a comedy, and, after Fyodor's return
from banishment, became editor of the Epoch.

I made friends with Fyodor Dostoevsky the very
first day that he entered the College. It's half-a-

247

248 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

century ago now, but I can well remember how much
more I cared for him than for any of the other friends
of my youth. Despite his reticent nature and general
lack of frankness and youthful expansion, he appeared
to reciprocate my affection. Dostoevsky always held
himself aloof, even then, from others, never took part
in his comrades' amusements, and usually sat in a
remote corner with a book ; his favourite place was a
corner in Class-Room IV. by the window. Out of
school-hours, he nearly always sat with a book by
that window.

I had, as a boy, a pliant character, and was easily
influenced; thus my relations with Dostoevsky were
those of not merely attachment, but absolute sub-
jection. His influence was extraordinarily beneficial
to me. Dostoevsky was much more advanced in all
knowledge than I was, and the extent of his reading
amazed me. The many things he told me about the
works of writers, whose very names to me were
unknown, came as a revelation. Hitherto I had, like
the rest of my colleagues, read nothing but text-
books and abstracts of lectures; not only because
other books were forbidden in the College, but from
lack of interest in literature.

The first Russian books with which I made
acquaintance I got from Dostoevsky; they were a
translation of Hoffmann's " Kater Murr " and " The
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," by Maturin
[sic] ; the latter was especially prized by Dostoevsky.
His literary influence was not confined to me alone;
three of my colleagues came equally under his spell
Beketov, Vitkovsky, and Berechetzky; in this way
a little circle was formed, which gathered round
Dostoevsky in every leisure hour.

This reading, and the interchange of ideas which
it brought about, took from me all inclination for my

THE COPPER COIN 249

studies. Nor did Dostoevsky rank among the best
pupils. Before the examinations he always made the
most tremendous efforts, so as to get into a higher
class. But he did not invariably succeed; in one
examination he failed entirely, and was unpromoted.
This failure worried him so much that he fell ill, and
had to go to hospital for a while.

In 1844 or '45 I met him quite by chance in the
street; he had then completed his studies, and had
exchanged military uniform for civilian dress. I
clasped him in my arms with cries of joy. Even
Dostoevsky seemed -glad, but behaved with some
reticence. He never was, indeed, given to public
displays of emotion. My delight at this unexpected
meeting was so great and genuine that it never even
occurred to me to feel hurt by his cool behaviour.
I told him about all my acquaintances in literary
circles, about my own literary attempts, and at once
invited him to come to my abode and hear my latest
production. He willingly agreed.

When I had read him my story he seemed pleased
with it, but gave me no very extravagant praise; with
one passage he found fault. This was how it ran:
" When the organ stopped, an official threw a copper
coin out of his window, which fell at the organ-
grinder's feet." " No, that's not right," said Dos-
toevsky, " it is much too dull: ' The copper coin fell
at the organ-grinder's feet.' You should say, ' The
copper coin fell clinking and hopping at the man's
feet ' " . . . That remark struck me as a revelation.

As time went on, I saw more and more of Dos-
toevsky. At last we decided to set up house together.
My mother sent me fifty roubles a month, Dostoevsky
got nearly as much from his relatives in Moscow.
As things were then, a hundred roubles was quite
enough for two young fellows ; but we did not under-

250 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

stand housekeeping, and the money usually lasted us
only for the first fortnight ; for the rest of the month
we fared on rolls and coffee. The house we lived in
was at the corner of Vladimir and Graf en Streets;
it consisted of a kitchen and two rooms, whose three
windows looked out on Graf en Street. We had no
servants; we made our own tea, and bought all food
ourselves.

When we set up house, Dostoevsky was working
at the translation of Balzac's " Eugenie Grandet."
Balzac was our favourite writer; we both considered
him by far the most important of the French authors.
Dostoevsky succeeded, I know not how, in publishing
his translation in the Book-Lovers' Library; I can
still recollect how vexed Dostoevsky was when that
number of the magazine reached him the editor had
shortened the novel by a third. But that was what
Senkovsky, then the editor of the Library, always
did with his collaborators' works, and the authors
were so glad to see themselves in print that they
never protested.

My enthusiasm for Dostoevsky was the reason why
Bielinsky, to whom Nekrassov introduced me, made
quite a different impression upon me from what
I had expected. Properly tutored by Nekrassov, I
regarded the impending visit to Bielinsky as a great
joy; long beforehand I rehearsed the words in which
I should describe to him my admiration for Balzac.
But scarcely had I mentioned that my housemate
Dostoevsky (whose name was still unknown to
Bielinsky) had translated " Eugenie Grandet " than
Bielinsky began to abuse our divinity most terribly:
he called him a writer for the bourgeois, and said that
there was not a page of " Eugenie Grandet " without
some error in taste. I was so nonplussed that I
forgot every word of the beautifully rehearsed speech.

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DOSTOEVSKY'S HANDWRITING IN 1838.
(LETTER TO HIS RKOTHKU MICHAEL, AUGUST .)

DOSTOEVSKY'S HANDWRITING 251

Probably I impressed him as a stupid boy who could
not say a word in defence of his own opinion.

At that time Dostoevsky would spend whole days,
and sometimes nights, at his desk. He never said a
word about what he was working at; he answered
my questions unwillingly and laconically, and I soon
ceased to interrogate him; I merely saw countless
sheets covered with Dostoevsky's peculiar writing
every letter as if drawn. I have seen no writing like
it, except that of Dumas pere. When Dostoevsky
was not writing, he would sit crouched over a book.
For a while he raved about the novels of Soulie,
particularly the " Memoires des Demons." As a con-
sequence of his hard work and the sedentary life he
led, his health was getting worse and worse; those
troubles which had occasionally shown themselves
even in his boyhood now became increasingly fre-
quent. Sometimes he would even have a fit on one
of our few walks together. Once we chanced to come
on a funeral. Dostoevsky insisted on turning back
at once; but he had scarcely gone a few steps when
he had such a violent fit that I was obliged to carry
him, with the help of some passers-by, into the nearest
shop; it was with great difficulty that we restored
him to consciousness. Such attacks were usually
followed by a state of great depression, which lasted
two or three days.

One morning Dostoevsky called me into his room;
he was sitting on the divan which served as bed also,
and before him on the little writing-table lay a thickish
manuscript-book, large size, with speckled edges.

"Sit down here a while, Grigorovitch; I only
wrote it out fair yesterday and I want to read it to
you; but don't interrupt me," said he, with unusual
vivacity.

The work which he then read to me at one breath,

252 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

with no pauses at all, soon afterwards appeared in
print under the title of " Poor Folk."

I always had a very high opinion of Dostoevsky;
his wide reading, his knowledge of literature, his
opinions, and the deep seriousness of his character, all
extraordinarily impressed me; I often asked myself
how it was that, while I had already written and
published a good deal, and so could account myself a
literary man, Dostoevsky did not yet share this dis-
tinction. But with the first pages of " Poor Folk " it
was borne in on me that this work was incomparably
greater than anything that I had so far written ; that
conviction increased as he read on. I was quite en-
chanted, and several times longed to clutch and hug
him; only that objection of his to effusions of feeling,
which I knew so well, restrained me but I could not
possibly sit there in silence, and interrupted him
every moment with exclamations of delight.

The consequences of that reading are well-known.
Dostoevsky has himself related in his Diary how I
tore the manuscript from him by force, and took it to
Nekrassov forthwith. He has indeed out of modesty
said nothing of the reading to Nekrassov. I myself
read the work aloud. At the last scene, when old
Dyevuchkin takes leave of Varenyka, I could no
longer control myself, and broke into sobs. I saw
that Nekrassov also was weeping. I then pointed out
to him that a good deed should never be put off, and
that, in spite of the late hour, he should instantly
betake himself to Dostoevsky, to tell him of his
success and talk over the details of the novel's
appearance in the magazine.

Nekrassov too was very much excited; he agreed,
and we really did go straight off to Dostoevsky.

I must confess that I had acted rashly. For I
knew the character of my housemate, his morbid

THE MIDNIGHT VISIT 253

sensibility and reserve, his shyness and I ought to
have told him all quite quietly next morning, instead
of waking him in the middle of the night, and,
moreover, bringing a strange man to visit him.

Dostoevsky himself opened the door to our knock-
ing; when he saw me with a stranger, he was fright-
fully embarrassed, turned pale, and for a long time
could make no response to Nekrassov's eulogiums.
When our guest had gone, I expected that Dostoevsky
would overwhelm me with reproaches. But that did
not happen; he merely shut himself up in his room,
and for a long time I heard him walking excitedly up
and down.

After Dostoevsky had in this way come to know
Nekrassov, and through him Bielinsky too (for the
latter, also, soon read " Poor Folk " in manuscript),
he was suddenly as if metamorphosed. During the
printing of the novel he was continually in a state of
the most excessive nervous excitement. His reserve
went so far that he never told me a word of what
further ensued between him and Nekrassov. I heard
indirectly that he exacted from Nekrassov that his
novel should be set up in quite peculiar type, and
that every page should have a sort of framing. I was
not present at the negotiations, and cannot therefore
say whether these rumours were founded on truth.

One thing I can decidedly say: the success of
" Poor Folk," and still more the extravagant eulogiums
of Bielinsky, had a bad influence on Dostoevsky, who
till then had lived wholly shut in with himself and
had associated only with people who took no interest
at all in literature. How could such a man as he
have remained in his normal condition of mind, when
at his very first entrance to the literary career, an
authority like Bielinsky prostrated himself before
him, and loudly proclaimed that a new star had

254 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

arisen in Russian literature ? Soon after " Poor Folk,"
Dostoevsky wrote his novel " Mr. Prochartchin,"
which likewise was read aloud to Nekrassov; I was
invited to the reading. Bielinsky sat opposite the
author, listened greedily to every word, and now and
then expressed his delight saying over and over
again that nobody but Dostoevsky was capable of
such psychological subtleties.

But perhaps Bielinsky 's enthusiasm had less effect
on him than the subsequent complete revulsion in
Bielinsky 's appreciation and that of his circle.

About that time Bielinsky said in a letter to
Annenkov: " Dostoevsky 's ' Mistress of the Inn ' is
terrible stuff ! He has attempted a combination of
Marlinsky 1 and Hoffmann, with a dash of Gogol.
He has written other novels besides, but every new
work of his is a new calamity. In the provinces they
can't stand him at all, and in Petersburg even ' Poor
Folk ' is abused ; I tremble at the thought that 1
shall have to read this novel once more. We've been
well taken in by our ' gifted ' Dostoevsky !"

So Bielinsky wrote, the most honest man in the
world, and he meant every word of it most honestly
and thoroughly. Bielinsky never flinched from de-
claring his opinion of Dostoevsky, and all his circle
echoed him.

The unexpected transition from idolization of the
author of " Poor Folk " to complete denial of his
literary talent might well have crushed even a less
sensitive and ambitious writer than Dostoevsky.
Thenceforth he avoided all those who were connected
with Bielinsky's circle, and became more reserved
and irritable than ever. At a meeting with Turgenev,
who likewise belonged to Bielinsky's set, Dostoevsky

1 Alexander Bestuchev (pseudonym, Marlinsky), 1795-
1837, a novelist very popular at that period.

THE BREACH WITH BIELINSKY 255

unhappily lost control of himself, and all the anger
which had gathered in him flamed forth ; he said that
he was not afraid of any one of them, and would
tread them all into the mud in time. I forget what
was the immediate cause of the outbreak; I think
-they were speaking of Gogol, among others. But in
any case I am convinced that Dostoevsky was to
blame. Turgenev was never given to quarrelling;
he might rather be reproached with too great pliancy
and gentleness of character.

After the scene with Turgenev it came to an open
breach between Dostoevsky and the Bielinsky set.
Now they overwhelmed him with derision and biting
epigrams, and he was accused of monstrous conceit;
they said too that he was jealous of Gogol, whom in
justice he should adore, since on every page of " Poor
Folk " the influence of Gogol was unmistakable.

This last reproach, if it is a reproach for a novice,
was not quite unjustified. Old Dyevuchkin in " Poor
Folk " does undoubtedly recall Poprischtschin the
functionary, in the " Memoirs of a Madman " of
Gogol; in the scene where Dyevuchkin loses a
button in the presence of his superiors and, much
embarrassed, tries to pick it up, one cannot but
think of that scene of Gogol's where Poprischtschin
tries to pick up the handkerchief which his superior's
daughter has dropped, and comes to grief on the
parquet floor. Not only the constant use of the same
word over and over again, but the whole composition,
betrays Gogol's influence.

Once, I forget why, he and I fell out. The conse-
quence was that we decided to give up living together.
But we parted on good terms. Later I often met
him with acquaintances, and we treated one another
as old friends.

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF
A. P. MILYUKOV

18481849

I MADE Dostoevsky's acquaintance in the winter of
1848. That was a momentous period for enthusiastic
and cultured youth. After the February Revolution
in Paris, the reforms of Pius IX., the risings in
Milan, Venice, and Naples, the victory of liberal
ideas in Germany and the revolutions of Berlin and
Vienna, everyone believed in the renaissance of the
whole European world. The rotted pillars of reaction
were crumbling one after the other, and all over
Europe new life seemed to be in bud. Yet in Russia,
at that time, prevailed the most crushing reaction:
Science, no less than the Press, could hardly breathe
beneath the heavy yoke of the administration, and
every sign of mental vitality was stifled. From
abroad, a quantity of liberal writings, partly scientific,
partly literary, were smuggled into the country. In
the French and German papers, people, despite the
Censorship, were reading stirring articles; but among
ourselves all scientific and literary activity was
rendered well-nigh impossible, and the Censorship
tore each new book to pieces. Naturally all this had
a highly exciting effect upon the younger generation,
who on the one hand were, through these foreign
books and journals, making acquaintance not only
with Liberal ideas, but with the most extreme Socialist
doctrine; and on the other, were finding that the
256

THE DOUROV GROUP 257

most harmless notions of Liberalism were relentle 'sly
persecuted in their own country they would read
the flaming speeches made in the French Chamber
and at Frankfort, and at the same time see how,
among ourselves, someone was punished like a criminal
every day for an incautious word or a " forbidden "
book. Almost every foreign post brought news of
fresh rights gained for themselves by the people,
while in Russian society one heard only of fresh
" special decrees " and persecutions. All who re-
member that time will know the effect this had upon
the younger generation.

There now began to form, in Petersburg, little
groups of young men, who for the most part had but
recently left the High Schools. These assembled
solely to discuss the latest news and rumours, and
to express opinions freely. In these groups, new
acquaintances were made, and old ones renewed.

I happened in this way to be present at an assembly
which took place at the abode of the young writer
A. N. Plechtcheyev. I there entered into relations
with a set of men whose memories I shall ever cherish.
Among others were present: Porfiry Lamansky,
Sergey Dourov, Nikolay Monbelli and Alexander
Palm, both of whom were officers of the Guards
and the brothers Michael and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
All these young men were extraordinarily sympathetic
to me. I became particularly intimate with the two
Dostoevskys and Monbelli. The latter then lived in
barracks, and we used to assemble at his quarters too.
I made further acquaintances among his circle, and
learnt that large assemblies took place at the abode
of one M. V. Butachevitch-Petrachevsky, whereat
speeches on political and social questions were made.
Someone offered to take me to Petrachevsky ; but
I declined, not from timidity or indifference, but

because Petrachevsky, whose acquaintance I had
recently made, had not particularly attracted me ; he
held quite too paradoxical opinions, and showed a
certain aversion for all things Russian.

On the contrary I very willingly accepted an
invitation to enter the little group which gathered
about Dourov ; he attracted many who belonged also
to Petrachevsky's set, but embraced more moderate
opinions. Dourov lived at that time with Palm in
Gorochovoya Street. At his small abode there
assembled every Friday an organized circle of young
men, among whom the military element was repre-
sented. As the host was of modest means, and the
guests always remained until three o'clock in the
morning, each had to pay a monthly contribution
towards the entertainment, and the hire of a piano.
I attended these evenings regularly, until in conse-
quence of the arrest of Petrachevsky and the members
of his circle, they were suspended.

Dostoevsky also frequented these evenings at
Dourov's. Our circle occupied itself with no revolu-
tionary plans of any kind, and had no written statutes
at all; in short, it could not possibly be described as
a secret society. We assembled to exchange the then
proscribed books, and to discuss questions which were
not permitted to be openly touched on. Most of all
were we interested in the question of the emancipa-
tion of the peasants, and at our meetings we always
spoke of the ways and means to this reform. Some
thought that in view of the reaction which had been
brought about in our country by the European revo-
lutions, the Government would never decide to carry
out the emancipation of the peasants, and that it
would come rather from below than from above;
others, on the contrary, maintained that our people
had no desire whatever to follow in the footsteps of

DOSTOEVSKY ON SOCIALISM 259

the European revolutionaries, and would patiently
await the decision of their fate by the Government.
In this sense, Fyodor Dostoevsky expressed himself
with particular emphasis. When anybody in his
vicinity declared that the emancipation of the peasants
by the lawful path was most doubtful, he would
retort that he believed in no other pj;h.

We talked too of literature, but chiefly with
reference to remarkable newspaper articles. Occa-
sionally the older writers were discussed, and very
severe, one-sided, and mistaken judgments often
found expression. Once when the subject happened
to be Dershavin, and somebody declared that he was
much more of a turgid and servile ode-maker and
courtier than the great poet for which his contem-
poraries and the schools had taken him, Dostoevsky
sprang up as if stung by a wasp, and cried: " What 1
No poetic rapture, no true ardour, in Dershavin ?
His not the loftiest poetry ?"

And forthwith he declaimed from memory a poem
of Dershavin's with such power, with such ardour,
that the singer of Catherine the Great rose at once
in our estimation. Another time he delivered some
poems of Pushkin and Victor Hugo, similar in
subject, and proved to us, with great success, that
our poet was a much more remarkable artist than
the Frenchman.

Dourov's circle included many fervent Socialists.
Intoxicated by the Utopias of certain foreign theorists,
they saw in this doctrine the dawn of a new religion,
which one day should remodel the world on the basis
of a new social order. Everything that appeared in
French on the question was discussed hotfoot by us.
We were always talking about the Utopias of Robert
Owen and Cabet, but still more, perhaps, of Fourier's
phalanstery, and Proudhon's theory of progressive

260 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

taxation. We all took an equal interest in the
Socialists, but many refused to believe in the possi-
bility of practically realizing their teachings. Among
these latter was, again, Dostoevsky. He read all the
works on Socialism, it is true, but remained wholly
sceptical. Though he granted that all these doctrines
were founded on noble ideals, he nevertheless regarded
the Socialists as honest, but foolish, visionaries. He
would say again and again that none of these theories
could have any real meaning for us, and that we must
find our material for the development of Russian
society not in the doctrines of foreign Socialists, but
in the life and customs, sanctified by centuries of use,
of our own people, in whom had long been apparent
far more enduring and normal conceptions than were
to be found in all the Utopias of Saint-Simon. To
him (he would say) life in a commune or in a phalan-
stery would seem much more terrible than in a
Siberian prison. I need not say that our Socialists
stuck to their opinions.

All new laws and other actions of the Government
were also discussed and severely criticized by us. In
view of the arbitrary rule which prevailed in our
country, and the grand events which were coming off
in Western Europe, and inspiring us with the hope
of a better and freer mode of existence, our discontent
is wholly comprehensible. In this respect Dostoevsky
showed the same zeal and the same rebellious spirit
as the other members of our circle. I cannot now
remember the actual content of his speeches, but I do
recollect that he ever protested against all measures
which in any way implied the oppression of the
people, and was especially infuriated by those abuses
from which the lowest ranks of society and the
students equally suffered. One could always recog-
nize the author of " Poor Folk " in his judgments.

BIELINSKY'S LETTER 261

One of us proposed that discourses should be held in
our assemblies; each was to write an indictment of
the Government, and read it aloud to the rest;
Dostoevsky approved this plan, and promised to do
something of the kind. I forget whether he carried
out his promise. The first discourse, which was
given by one of the officers, dealt with an anecdote
which was at that time common talk; Dostoevsky
found fault both with the subject and the form of
this effort. On one of the evenings, I read a passage
from Lamennais' " Paroles d'un Croyant," which I
had translated into " Church-Russian." Dostoevsky
assured me that the grave Biblical language of my
translation sounded much more impressive than that
of the original. Later on, we resolved to print
several copies of some of our members' papers, and
circulate them widely ; but this plan was never carried
out, for just then the majority of our friends, and
those in particular who had attended the Petrachevsky
evenings, were arrested.

Shortly before the break-up of the Dourov circle,
one of its members had been in Moscow, and had
brought from there a transcript of the famous letter
which Bielinsky had written to Gogol in the course
of his " Correspondence with Friends." Fyodor
Dostoevsky read this letter aloud both in our circle
and in the houses of several of his friends, and also
gave it to different people to be transcribed anew.
This was subsequently the main pretext for his arrest
and banishment. Bielinsky 's letter, in its paradoxical
one-sidedness, would scarcely impress anyone much
at this time of day, but it then produced a remarkable
effect upon all minds. Along with this letter, there
was then circulating in our set a humorous article
by Alexander Herzen (similarly brought from Moscow),
in which our two capitals were contrasted no less

262 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

wittily than maliciously. On the arrest of the
Petrachevsky group, I know that numerous copies
of these two works were seized. Besides our evenings
for discussion and reading, we had musical ones.
At our last assembly, a very gifted pianist played
Rossini's overture to " William Tell."

On April 23, 1849, I heard, through Michael
Dostoevsky, of the arrest of his brother Fyodor, as
well as of Dourov, Monbelli, Filippov, and others. A
fortnight later, I was told one morning that Michael
Dostoevsky also had been arrested the night before.
His wife and children were left wholly without means
of support, for he had no regular income whatever, and
lived entirely by his literary work. As I knew the
tranquirand reserved character of Michael Dostoevsky,
I was really but little concerned as to his fate; it is
true that he had frequented Petrachevsky, but he had
been in disagreement with most members of the circle.
So far as I knew, there could be little against him.
Therefore I hoped that he would soon be set at liberty.
As a matter of fact, he was, at the end of May; and
came to me, early in the morning, to look up his son
Fedya, whom I had housed. In the evening of the
same day he gave me many particulars of his arrest,
of his stay in the fortress, and of the questions which
had been put to him by the Committee of Investiga-
tion. From these questions we could gather what
would be the indictment against Fyodor. Although
he was charged only with some rash utterances
against high personages and with the dissemination
of proscribed writings, and the momentous Bielinsky
letter, these things could, with ill-will, be given a
very serious turn ; in that case, a grievous fate awaited
him. True, that gradually many of those arrested
were being set free; but it was said that many were
threatened with banishment.

THE GOOD-BYE VISIT 263

The summer of 1849 was a sa d time for all of us.
I saw Michael Dostoevsky every week. The news
about our incarcerated friends was very vague; we
knew only that they were all in good health. The
investigating committee had now ended its labours,
and we daily expected the decision. But the autumn
went by, and not until shortly before Christmas was
the fate of the prisoners made known. To our utter
amazement and horror, they were all condemned to
death. The sentence was not, however, as all the
world knows, executed; capital punishment was at
the last moment altered to other penalties. Fyodor
Dostoevsky got four years' hard labour in Siberia, and
after completion of that sentence was to be enrolled as
a private in one of the Siberian regiments of the line.
All this was done so hastily and suddenly that neither
I nor his brother could be present at the proclamation
of the sentence on Semyonovsky Square; we heard
of the fate of our friends only when all was at an end,
and they had been taken back to the Petropaulovsky
fortress (except Petrachevsky, who was sent straight
from the tribunal to Siberia) .

The prisoners were despatched in parties of two and
three from the fortress to their exile. On the third
day after the sentence, Michael Dostoevsky told me
that his brother was to depart that very evening, and
that he wanted to go and say good-bye to him at the
fortress. I too wished to say good-bye to Fyodor
Dostoevsky. We both went to the fortress, and
applied to Major M., whom we had known in past
days, and through whose mediation we hoped to
obtain permission to see the prisoners. He told us
that it was true that Dostoevsky and Dourov were
to be sent that very evening to Omsk. But per-
mission to see our friends could be got only from the
the Commandant of the fortress.

264 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

We were conducted into a large room on the
ground-floor of the Commandant's quarters. It was
already late, and a lamp was burning in the room.
We had to wait a very long time, and twice heard
the cathedral-bell of the fortress ring out the hour.
At last the door opened, and there entered, accom-
panied by an officer, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dourov.
We greeted them with a mighty shaking of hands.

Despite the long, solitary confinement, neither had
changed at all appreciably; the one seemed quite as
grave and calm, the other as cheerful and friendly, as
before the arrest. Both already wore the travelling-
clothes sheepskins and felt boots in which prisoners
were dressed for transportation. The officer sat un-
obtrusively at some distance from us on a chair,
and did not disturb our conversation. Fyodor talked
first of all of his joy that his brother had escaped a
similar fate to his ; then he asked with warm interest
for Michael's family, and about all the details of his
life. During the meeting, he several times recurred
to that theme. Dostoevsky and Dourov spoke with
genuine liking of the Commandant of the fortress, who
had treated them most humanely and done all that
was in his power to alleviate their lot. Neither the
one nor the other complained of the stern tribunal, or
he harsh sentence. The life which awaited them in
prison did not alarm them; they could not then
foresee the effect which the punishment was to have
upon their health.

When the Dostoevsky brothers took leave of one
another, it was clear to me that not he who had to
go to Siberia, but he who remained in Petersburg,
suffered the more. The elder brother wept, his lips
trembled, while Fyodor seemed calm and even
consoled him.

"Don't do that, brother," he said; "why, you

DOSTOEVSKY'S COURAGE 265

know me. Come, you are not seeing me to my
grave; even in prison there dwell not beasts but
men, and many of them are possibly better and
worthier than I am. . . . We shall see one another
again, I am sure of it; I confidently hope for that,
I have no doubt at all that we shall meet again. . . .
Write to me in Siberia, send me books; I'll send
word to you from there what books I need; I shall
surely be allowed to read there. . . . And when
once I have the prison behind me, I'll write regularly.
During these months I have lived through much in
my soul ; and think of all I shall see and live through
in the future ! I shall truly have plenty of material
for writing. ..."

He gave one the impression of regarding the im-
pending punishment as a pleasure-trip abroad, in the
course of which he should see beautiful scenery and
artistic treasures, and make new acquaintances in
perfect freedom. He never seemed to realize that
he was to spend four years in the " House of the
Dead," in chains, in the company of criminals;
perhaps he was full of the thought that he would find
in the most fallen criminal those human traits, those
sparks of divine fire that, though heaped over with
ashes, still glimmer, still are unextinguished those
sparks which, according to his conviction, burn even
in the most outcast of mankind, in the most hardened
of criminals.

This final . meeting lasted over half-an-hour ;
although we spoke of many things, the time seemed
short. The melancholy bell was sounding again
when the Major entered, and said the interview was
at an end. For the last time we embraced. I did
not then imagine that I should never see Dourov
again, and Fyodor Dostoevsky only after eight years.

FROM THE MEMORANDA OF P. K.

MARTYANOV, 1 AT THE HOUSE

OF THE DEAD

18501854

THE hardest office which was assigned to us who had
been transferred on punishment was keeping guard in
the prison. It was the same one that Dostoevsky
has described in his " House of the Dead." Of those
who had been implicated in the Petrachevsky affair,
there were then in the prison Fyodor Michailo-
vitch Dostoevsky and Sergey Fyodorovitch Dourov.
Whether they had formerly been much known in
Petersburg, we are not aware; but during their stay
in the prison their Petersburg friends took the
greatest interest in them, and did everything possible
to alleviate their lot.

The two young men, once so elegant, made a sad
spectacle in the prison. They wore the usual convict-
dress : in the summer, vests of striped grey and black
stuff with yellow badges on the back, and white caps
with no brims ; in the winter, short sheepskins, caps
with ear-flaps, and mittens. On their arms and legs
were chains which clanked at every movement; so
that they were in no way externally distinguished
from the other prisoners. Only one thing marked

1 Martyanov's memoranda are based on verbal information
from several naval cadets who, on account of participation
in the movement of 1849, were degraded, and transferred to
the line regiment at Omsk as privates.
266

DOSTOEVSKY IN PRISON 267

them out from the mass: the ineffaceable signs of
good education and training. Dostoevsky looked
liked a strong, somewhat thickset, well-disciplined
working-man. His hard fate had, as it were, turned
him to stone. He seemed dull, awkward, and was
always taciturn. On his pale, worn, ashen face,
which was freckled with dark-red spots, one never
saw a smile; he opened his lips only to utter curt,
disconnected remarks about his work. He always
wore his cap dragged down on his forehead to his
eyebrows ; his glance was sullen, unpropitiating, fierce,
and mostly directed on the ground. The prisoners
did not like him, though they recognized his moral
force; they looked askance at him, but with no
malice, and would tacitly avoid him. He perceived
this himself, and so kept aloof from all ; only on very
rare occasions, when he was beyond himself with
misery, would he draw any of the prisoners into con-
versation. Dourov, on the contrary, looked like a
fine gentleman even in prison clothes. He was well
grown, held his head proudly aloft, his large black
eyes looked friendly despite their short-sightedness,
and he smiled on all and sundry. He wore his cap
pushed back on his neck, and even in the worst hours
preserved an unalterably cheerful aspect. He treated
each individual prisoner amiably and cordially, and
all of them liked him. But he suffered much, and
was frightfully run down so much so that sometimes
he could not stir a foot. And yet he remained good-
tempered, and tried to forget his physical pain in
laughter and joking.

From the prison-guard was then demanded much
care, energy, and vigilance. The guard had to escort
the prisoners to the working-places, and also to super-
vise them in the prison. The captain of the guard
had to report every morning on the condition of the

268 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

prisoners, to look after the cleanliness and discipline
in the prison and the barrack-rooms, to make surprise-
inspections, and prevent the smuggling-in of schnaps,
tobacco, playing-cards, and other forbidden articles;
his duties, therefore, were arduous and responsible.

The naval cadets of that period were nevertheless
ready to assume these duties in place of the officers,
for in that way they obtained an opportunity of
coming continually under the notice of their superiors,
and at the same time of alleviating, so far as was
feasible, the hard lot of the prisoners. Most of these
worked outside the prison at the building of the
fortress; but some were daily kept in to do the
house-work. These latter came under the imme-
diate surveillance of the guard, and would remain,
unless they were sent to do work of some kind, either
in the orderly-room or in their cells. In this way the
naval cadets could always keep back any particular
prisoner if they so desired. For instance, Dostoevsky
and Dourov were often kept back for " house-work ";
the captains of the guard would then send for them
to the orderly-room, where they would tell them the
news, and give them any presents, books, or letters
that might have come for them. We let them come
into the orderly-room only at such times as we were
sure that no superior officer was likely to appear;
but, in case of accident, we always kept a soldier in
readiness to take them back to work. General
Borislavsky, who superintended the labours, and the
Commandant of the fortress, General de Grave, were
made aware of this proceeding by the physician,
Doctor Troizky.

According to the cadets' reports, the character of
Dostoevsky was not attractive; he always looked
like a wolf in a trap, and avoided all the prisoners;
even the humane treatment shown by his superiors,

HIS UNSOCIABILITY 269

and their efforts to be useful to him and alleviate his
lot, he took as an injury. He always looked gloomy,
and amid the noise and animation of the prison held
himself aloof from all; only of necessity did he ever
speak a word. When the cadets summoned him to
the orderly-room, he would behave with much reserve;
he paid no heed to their suggestion that he should
sit down and rest, answered most unwillingly the
questions put to him, and almost never permitted him-
self any frankness of speech. Every expression of
sympathy he met with mistrust, as if he suspected in
it some secret purpose. Even the books that were
offered him he hardly ever accepted; only in two
cases (they were " David Copperfield " and the " Pick-
wick Papers ") did he show any interest in the books,
or take them to hospital with him. Doctor Troizky
explained Dostoevsky's unsociability by the morbid
state of his whole organism, which, as everyone
knows, was shattered by his nervous troubles and
epileptic fits, but outwardly he looked healthy, active,
and vigorous ; he shared, too, in all the labours of the
other convicts. The cadet from whom I obtained
this description accounted for Dostoevsky's un-
sociability by his fear that any relations with others,
and the solicitude shown for him, might come to the
knowledge of the authorities and injure him with
them. Dourov, on the contrary, was universally
liked. Despite his sickly, frail appearance, he took
an interest in everybody, gladly entered into relation-
ship with people outside the prison, and was cordially
grateful for any alleviation or aid that was offered
him. He talked, and even argued, freely upon all
sorts of subjects, and often succeeded in carrying his
audience with him. His open, cordial, and energetic
character was apparent to us all, and so he was much
better liked than Dostoevsky was.

270 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

The cadets observed with amazement that Dos-
toevsky and Dourov hated one another with all the
force of their beings; they were never seen together,
and during their whole time in the prison at Omsk
they never exchanged a word with one another.
When they both happened to be in the orderly-room
at the same time, they would sit in opposite corners
and answer any questions they were asked with no
more than a Yes or No. This was noticed, and they
were thenceforth summoned separately.

When Dourov was interrogated as to this odd
behaviour, he answered that neither would condescend
to address the other, because prison-life had made
enemies of them. And Dostoevsky, though he speaks
in his " House of the Dead " of many interesting con-
victs who were in the .prison during his time, never
once mentions Dourov, either by his full name or by
initials. And when he is obliged to refer to him, he
does it thus: " We, that is, I and the other prisoner
of noble birth who came to the prison at the same
time as I did. ..." Or thus : " I observed with terror
one of my prison-mates (of noble birth) who was
visibly going out like a candle. When he came to
the prison, he was young, handsome, and attractive;
he left it a broken, grey-haired, lame, and asthmatic
creature." The head - physician, Doctor Troizky,
showed great interest in the political prisoners. He
often sent them word by the cadets that they might
(one or the other of them) come to him in hospital
for cure; and they frequently did go to hospital for
several weeks, and there got good food, tea, wine, and
other such things, either from the hospital kitchen or
the doctor's own. According to what Doctor Troizky
told one of the cadets, Dostoevsky began his " House
of the Dead " in hospital, with the doctor's sanction;
for the prisoners were not allowed writing materials

MAJOR KRIVZOV 271

without express permission; the first chapters of that
work were long in the keeping of one of the hospital
orderlies. General Borislavsky also showed favour
to those two, through the medium of his adjutant,
Lieutenant Ivanov. By his permission they were put
only to the easier labours, except when they them-
selves desired to share the work of the other convicts.
Among these easier labours were included painting-
work, the turning of wheels, the burning of alabaster,
shovelling of snow, etc. Dostoevsky even got per-
mission to do secretarial work in the office of the
Engineering Department; but when Colonel Marten,
in a report to the officer commanding the corps,
expressed a doubt whether political offenders con-
demned to hard labour should be employed in such a
manner, this arrangement came to an end.

Once when Dostoevsky had remained behind in the
prison for " house-work," there suddenly came into
his cell Major Krivzov (whom Dostoevsky later
described as a " brute in human form "), to find him
lying on his plank-bed.

" What is the meaning of this ? Why is he not at
his labour ?" cried the Major.

" He is ill, sir," answered a cadet, who happened to
have accompanied the Major in his capacity as officer
of the guard. " He has just had an epileptic fit."

" Nonsense ! I am aware that you indulge him too
much. Out to the guard-room with him this instant ;
bring the rods !"

While he was being dragged from his plank and
pushed along to the guard-room, the cadet despatched
an exempt to the Commandant with a report of the
occurrence. General de Grave came at once to the
guard-room and stopped the whipping; while to
Major Krivzov he administered a public reprimand,
and gave orders that in no circumstances were ailing
prisoners to be subjected to corporal punishment.

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF BARON
ALEXANDER VRANGEL 1

18541865

WHEN I lived in Petersburg before my transfer to
Siberia, I was not acquainted with Fyodor Dostoevsky,
though I knew his favourite brother, Michael. I went
to see the latter before I left; when I told him that
I was going to Siberia, he begged me to take with
me for his brother, a letter, some linen, some books,
and fifty roubles. Apollon Maikov also gave me a
letter for Fyodor Dostoevsky.

When I reached Omsk at the end of November,
I found that Fyodor Dostoevsky was no longer there;
he had completed his time in prison, and had been
sent as a private soldier to Semipalatinsk. Soon
afterwards, I was obliged, in the course of my duty,
to settle for quite a long time at Semipalatinsk.

Destiny thus brought me, exactly five years after
the scene on Semyonovsky Square, at which I had
happened to be present and which had been so
momentous for Dostoevsky, again into contact with
him, and that for some years.

On my way to Semipalatinsk I visited Omsk again.
There I made the acquaintance of Mme. Ivanova,
who had been very kind to Dostoevsky during his
time in prison. She was the daughter of the

1 Baron Alexander Vrangel, as a young student, was present
on December 22, 1849, at the ceremony in Semyonovsky
Square. He went to Siberia in 1854 as District- Attorney.
272

A REAL FRIEND 273

Decembrist Annenkov and his wife, Praskovya
Ivanova, a Frenchwoman by birth, who, like many
another of the Decembrists' wives, had followed her
husband into exile. Mme. Ivanova's husband was
an officer of the Gendarmerie. She was a wonder-
fully kind and highly cultured woman, the friend of
all unfortunate folk, but particularly of the political
prisoners. She and her mother had made Dostoevsky's
acquaintance first at Tobolsk, whither he had been
brought from Petersburg in the beginning of the year
1850. Tobolsk was then the clearing-house for all
offenders transported from European Russia; from
Tobolsk they were sent to the other Siberian towns.
Mme. Ivanova provided Dostoevsky with linen, books,
and money while he was at Tobolsk; at Omsk, too,
she looked after him and alleviated his durance in
many ways. When, in 1856, I returned to Peters-
burg, Dostoevsky asked me to visit her, and convey
his gratitude for all the goodness she had shown him.
I must observe that the political offenders of that
time were, in most cases, much more humanely and
cordially treated by their official superiors and by the
gentry than in later years. In the reign of Nicholas I.
the whole of Siberia was crammed with political
offenders, Russians as well as Poles; these were all
cultured, liberal persons, absolutely sincere and con-
vinced. But Fyodor Dostoevsky awakened quite
peculiar sympathy. He told me himself that neither
in the prison nor later during his military service
was ever a hair of his head hurt by his superiors or
by the other prisoners or soldiers; all the newspaper
reports that declare otherwise are pure invention.
For it has frequently been maintained that Dos-
toevsky's fits were brought on by the corporal
chastisement he received ; and many appear to believe
this legend.

18

274 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

In November, 1854, then, I came to Semipalatinsk.
On the morning after my arrival, I betook myself to
the Military Governor, Spiridonov. He at once sent
his adjutant to look out for rooms for me; and
within a few hours I had settled down in my new
home. I inquired of the Governor how and where I
could find Dostoevsky, and ask him to come to tea
with me that evening. Dostoevsky was then living
in an abode of his own (and no longer in barracks).

At first he did not know who I was and why I had
asked him to come ; so he was in the beginning very
reticent. He wore a grey military cloak with a high
red collar and red epaulettes; his pale, freckled face
had a morose expression. His fair hair was closely
shorn. He scrutinized me keenly with his intelligent
blue-grey eyes, as if seeking to divine what sort
of person I was. As he confessed to me later on, he
had been almost frightened when my messenger
told him that the District-Attorney wished to see
him. But when I apologized for not having first
visited him personally, gave him the letters, parcels,
and messages from Petersburg, and showed my
friendly feeling, he quickly grew cheerful and confi-
dential. Afterwards he told me that on that first
evening he had instinctively divined in me an intimate
friend-to-be.

While he read the letters I had brought, tears
came into his eyes; I too was overcome by that
mysterious sense of despair and desolation which I
had so often felt during my long journey. As I was
talking with Dostoevsky, a whole pile of letters from
my relatives and friends in Petersburg was brought
to me. I ran through the letters and suddenly began
to sob; I was at that time unusually emotional and
greatly attached to my family. My separation from
all who were dear to me seemed insupportable, and I

SEMIPALATINSK 275

was quite terrified of my future life. So there we
were together, both in a desolate and lonely condition.
... 1 felt so heavy-hearted that I forgot my exalted
position as District -Attorney, and fell on the neck of
Fyodor Michailovitch, who stood looking at me with
mournful eyes. He comforted me, pressed my hand
like an old friend, and we promised one another to
meet as often as possible. Dostoevsky was, as is
known, discharged from prison early in the year 1854,
and sent to Semipalatinsk as a private. At first he
lived with the other soldiers in barracks; but soon,
through the influence of General Ivanov, he got per-
mission to live in a private house near the barracks,
under the supervision of his Captain, Stepanov. He
was under surveillance by his sergeant as well, but
the latter left him alone, on receipt of a trifling
" recognition."

The early days were the worst for him ; the absolute
isolation seemed unbearable. But gradually he came
to know some of the officers and officials, though
there was no close intercourse. Naturally, after the
prison, this new condition of things seemed a paradise.
Some cultured ladies in Semipalatinsk showed him
warm sympathy, most particularly Mme. Maria
Dmitryevna Issayev, and the wife of his Captain,
Stepanov. The Captain, a frightful drunkard, had
been transferred from Petersburg to Siberia for this
offence. His wife wrote verses, which Dostoevsky
was called upon to read and correct. Mme. Issayev,
after her husband's death, became, as everyone knows,
Dostoevsky 's wife.

In my time, Semipalatinsk was something between
a town and a village. All the houses were built of
wood. The population was between five and six
thousand, including the garrison and the AsiuiiY
merchants. On the left bank oi the river thcic lived

276 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

about three thousand Circassians. There was an
Orthodox church, seven mosques, a large caravanserai,
a barracks, a hospital, and the Government offices.
Of schools there was only a district one. In some
of the shops one could buy anything, from tintacks
to Parisian perfumes; but there was no bookshop,
for there was nobody to buy books. At the most,
from ten to fifteen of the inhabitants subscribed
to a newspaper; nor was that any wonder, for at the
time people in Siberia were interested only in cards,
gossip, drinking-bouts, and business. Even in the
Crimean War they took no interest, regarding it as
an alien, non-Siberian affair.

I subscribed to three papers: a Petersburg one,
a German one, and the Independance Beige. Dos-
toevsky delighted in reading the Russian and the
French ones; he took no particular interest in the
German paper, for at that time he did not understand
much German, and he always disliked the language.

Between the Tartar and the Cossack suburbs lay
the actual Russian town; this region was called the
" Fortress," although the fortress had long been
razed; only one great stone gate remained. In this
region all the military lived; here lay the battalion
of the Line, the Horse-Artillery, here were all the
authorities, the main guard, and the prison, which
was under my control. Not a tree nor a shrub was
to be seen; nothing but sand and thorny bush. Dosto-
evsky lived in a wretched hovel in this part of the town.

Living was then very cheap ; a pound of meat cost
half a kopeck, forty pounds of buckwheat groats,
thirty kopecks. Dostoevsky used to take home from
barracks his daily ration of cabbage-soup, groats, and
black bread; anything left over, he would give to his
poor landlady. He often lunched with me and other
acquaintances. His hovel was in the dreariest part

TEA AND CIGARETTES 277

of the town. It was of rough timber, crazy, warped,
without any foundations, and with not one window
looking on the street.

Dostoevsky had a quite large, but very low and
badly-lit room. The mud-walls had once been white ;
on both sides stood broad benches. On the walls
hung fly-spotted picture-sheets. To the left of the
doorway was a large stove. Behind the stove stood
a bed, a little table, and a chest of drawers, which
served as a dressing-table. All this corner was
divided from the rest of the room by a calico curtain.
In the windows were geraniums, and curtains hung
there which had once been red. Walls and ceiling
were blackened by smoke, and it was so dark in the
room that in the evenings one could scarcely read by
the tallow candle (wax candles were then a great
luxury, and petroleum lamps not known at all). I
can't even imagine how Dostoevsky contrived to
write for whole nig" its by such illumination. The
lodgings had yet another great attraction: on the
tables, walls, and bed there were always perfect flocks
of beetles, and in summer the place swarmed with
fleas.

Every day made us greater friends. Dostoevsky
visited me several times a day, as often as his military
and my official duties permitted; he often lunched
with me, and particularly enjoyed an evening at my
house, when he would drink a vast quantity o^tea,
and smoke endless cigarettes.

My intercourse with Dostoevsky soon attracted
attention in the circle most concerned. I noticed
that my letters were delayed for some days in trans-
mission to me. My enemies, and I had not a few
among the venal officials, often asked me ironical
questions about Dostoevsky, and expressed their
surprise at my consorting with a private. Even the

278 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Governor warned me, and said that he was afraid of
the evil influence which the revolutionary Dostoevsky
might have on one of my youth and inexperience.

The Military Governor, Spiridonov, was an un-
commonly pleasant, humane, and unaffected man,
and noted for his unusual hospitality. Being of such
high rank, he was naturally the most important
person in the town. I lunched with him every other
day, and enjoyed his fullest confidence. I wanted
him to have the opportunity of knowing Dostoevsky
better, and begged for permission to bring the exile
to his house. He pondered this a while, and said:
" Well, bring him some time, but tell him that he is
to come quite without ceremony in his uniform."

Spiridonov very soon grew to like Dostoevsky; he
helped him in every way he could. After the Military
Governor had set the example, the better families of
Semipalatinsk opened their doors to Dostoevsky.

There were no amusements of any sort in the
town. During the two years of my stay, not a
single musician came to the place; the one piano
was regarded more as a rarity than anything else.
Once the regimental clerks got up amateur theatricals
in the riding-school. Dostoevsky was very useful in
giving them advice, and persuaded me to be present
on the night. The whole town assembled in the
riding-school. The fair sex was particularly well
represented. This performance ended in a great
scandal. In the pause between two acts, some regi-
mental clerks appeared as soloists, and offered such
indecent ditties for the company's amusement that
the ladies took flight, though the officers, led by the
commander of the battalion, one Byelikov, roared
with laughter.

I can't remember a single dance, picnic, or organized
excursion. Every one lived for himself. The men

DOSTOEVSKY AT HIS BEST 279

drank, ate, played cards, made scandals, and visited
the rich Tartars of the neighbourhood; the women
busied themselves chiefly with gossip.

In Semipalatinsk there were other political offenders
Poles and whilom Hungarian officers of Russian-
Polish origin. When Gorgey in 1848 surrendered
with his army to Russia, Tsar Nicholas I. treated the
officers who had been taken prisoners in the war as
though they had been formerly his subjects, and sent
them to Siberia. The Poles kept to themselves, and
held no intercourse with others. The rich ones looked
after the poor, and there prevailed in general great
solidarity among them. Fyodor Dostoevsky did not
like these Poles, and usually avoided them ; we
became acquainted with only one, the engineer
Hirschfeld, who often visited us, and brought a
certain variety into our monotonous life.

I grew fonder and fonder of Dostoevsky; my
house was open to him day and night. When I
returned from duty, I often found him there already,
having come to me from the drill-ground or the
regimental office. He would be walking up and
down the room with his cloak unfastened, smoking
a pipe, and talking to himself; his head was always
full of new ideas. I can still remember distinctly
one such evening ; he was then occupied with
" Uncle's Dream " and " Stepanchikovo Village."

He was in an infectiously cheerful mood, laughing,
telling me of his " Uncle's " adventures, singing
operatic airs; when my servant Adam brought in
some amber-coloured sturgeon soup, he declared that
he was hungry, and urged Adam to hurry up with
the rest of the meal. He greatly liked this Adam
always stood up for him, and would give him money,
which afforded my Leporello, a terrible drunkard
quite superfluous opportunities for " one more."

280 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Fyodor Dostoevsky's favourite authors were Gogol
and Victor Hugo. When he was in a good temper
he liked to declaim poetry, and especially Pushkin's ;
his favourite piece waS " The Banquet of Cleopatra,"
from the " Egyptian Nights." He would recite it
with glowing eyes and ardent voice.

I must observe that at that time I was little
interested in literature; I had devoted myself wholly
to dry erudition, and this often made Dostoevsky
angry. More than once he said to me: " Do throw
away your professorial text -books !" He often sought
to convince me that Siberia could have no future,
because all the Siberian rivers run into the Arctic
Sea.

At that time Muravyov's achievements on the
Pacific Coast were unknown to the world, and of the
great Siberian Railway no one had so much as dared
to dream; such a plan would have been taken for
the delirium of a madman. I myself could not help
laughing when Bakunin, whose acquaintance I made
in 1858, unfolded the idea to me.

More and more I grew to care for Dostoevsky.
How highly I esteemed him is evident from my
letters to my relatives; these I have at hand to-day.
On April 2, 1856, I wrote from Semipalatinsk :
" Destiny has brought me into contact with a man
of rare intellect and disposition the gifted young
author Dostoevsky. I owe him much; his words,
counsels, and ideas will be a source of strength to me
throughout all my life. I work daily with him; at the
moment we think of translating Hegel's ' Philosophy '
and the ' Psyche ' of Carus. He is deeply religious ;
frail of body, but endowed with iron will. Do try,
my dear papa, to find out if there is any idea of an
amnesty."
In a letter to one of my sisters I read: " I beg of

HIS SYMPATHY 281

you to persuade papa to find out, through Alexander
Veimarn, whether any prisoners are to be pardoned
on the occasion of the Coronation festivities, and
whether' one could do anything for Dostoevsky with
Dubelt, or Prince Orlov. 1 Is this remarkable man
to languish here for ever as a private ? It would be
too terrible. I am sorely distressed about him; I
love him like a brother, and honour him like a
father."

Dostoevsky 's indulgence for everyone was quite
extraordinary. He found excuses for even the worst
of human traits, and explained them all by defective
education, the influence of environment, and inherited
temperament.

" Ah, my dear Alexander Yegorovitch, God has
made men so, once for all !" he used to say. He
sympathized with all who were abandoned by destiny,
with all the unhappy, ill, and poor. Everyone who
knew him well knows of his extraordinary goodness
of heart. How pathetic is his solicitude, for instance,
about his brother Michael's family, about little Pasha
Issayev, and many others besides !

We often spoke of politics too. Of his trial he
did not care to talk, and I never alluded to it of
my own accord. All I heard from him was that
he had never liked Petrachevsky or approved his
plans; he had always been of opinion that there
should be no thought of a political upheaval in Russia
at that period, and that the idea of a Russian
Constitution on the model of those of West-
European States was, considering the ignorance
of the great mass of the people, nothing less than
ridiculous.
He often thought of his comrades, Dourov,

1 Dubelt was Chief of the Police; Orlov of the Gendar-
merie.

282 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Plechtcheyev, and Grigoryev. He corresponded with
none of them, though; through my hands went only
his letters to his brother Michael, once in a way to
Apollon Maikov, to his Aunt Kamanina, and to
young Yakuchkin.

And now I must relate what I know of his epileptic
fits. I never, thank God, saw one of them. But I
know that they frequently recurred; his landlady
usually sent for me at once. After the fits he
always felt shattered for two or three days, and his
brain would not work. The first fits, as he declared,
had overtaken him in Petersburg; but the malady
had developed in prison. At Semipalatinsk he would
have one every three months. He told me that he
could always feel the fit coming on, and always
experienced beforehand an indescribable sense of
well-being. After each attack he presented a woe-
fully dejected aspect.

Fyodor Dostoevsky led a more sociable life than I
did; he went particularly often to the Issayevs'. He
would spend whole evenings at that house, and
among other things gave lessons to the only son,
Pasha, an intelligent boy of eight or nine. Maria
Dmitryevna Issayev was, if I am not mistaken, the
daughter of a schoolmaster, and had married a
junior master. How he had come to be in Siberia
I cannot say. Issayev suffered from pulmonary
consumption, and was, moreover, a great drunkard.
Otherwise he was a quiet, unpretentious person.
Maria Dmitryevna was about thirty, an extremely
pretty blonde of middle height, very thin, passionate,
and exaltee. Even then one often saw a hectic flush
on her cheek; some years later she died of con-
sumption. She was well read, not unaccomplished,
witty and appreciative of wit, very good-hearted,
and uncommonly vivacious and romantic. She took

DOSTOEVSKY AS GARDENER 283

a warm interest in Fyodor Michailovitch. I do not
think that she highly esteemed him; it was more
that she pitied him. Possibly she was attached to
him also; but in love with him she most decidedly
never was. She knew that he had epileptic attacks,
and that he suffered dire poverty ; she often said he
was " a man without a future." But Fyodor Michailo-
vitch took her compassion and sympathy for love,
and adored her with all the ardour of his youth. He
would spend whole days at the Issayevs', and tried to
induce me to go there too, but the family did not
attract me.

In the beginning of March, Squadron- Ad jut ant
Achmatov came to Omsk (he had done the journey
from Petersburg in ten days) with news of the
decease of Tsar Nicholas I. The news reached us
in Semipalatinsk on March 12.

Rumours of the clemency and mildness of the new
Tsar had already penetrated to Semipalatinsk. I
went with Dostoevsky to the Requiem Mass. The
general demeanour was grave enough, but one saw
not a single tear; only some old officers and soldiers
so much as sighed. Dostoevsky now began to hope
for a change in his fate, for an amnesty. Most of all
we discussed the question of whether the Crimean
War would go on.

In the summer I went into the country with
Dostoevsky to the so-called " Kasakov Gardens."
The place lay on the high bank of the Irtich. We
built a bathing-box close to the bank among bush,
underwood, and sedge, and began bathing as early as
May. We also worked hard in the flower-garden.
I can see Dostoevsky now, watering the young plants ;
he would take off his regimental cloak, and stand
among the flower-beds in a pink cotton shirt. Round
his neck hung a long chain of little blue glass beads

284 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

probably a keepsake from some fair hand. On this
chain he carried a large bulbous silver watch. He
was quite fascinated with gardening, and took great
delight in it.

The summer was extraordinarily hot. The two
daughters of Dostoevsky's landlady in the town often
helped us with our gardening. After some hours of
work we would go to bathe, and then drink tea up
above. We read newspapers, smoked, talked about
our Petersburg friends, and abused Western Europe.
The Crimean War still lasted, and we were both in a
gloomy frame of mind.

I passionately loved riding ; one day I succeeded in
persuading Dostoevsky to try a mount, and placed
one of the gentlest of my horses at his disposal; for
this was the first time in his life that he had ever been
on horseback. Comical and awkward as he looked in
the saddle, he soon grew to like riding, and thenceforth
we began to take long canters over the steppes.

Dostoevsky's love for Mme. Issayev was by no
means cooling all this time. He went to her house
as often as he could, and would come back in a
perfect ecstasy. He could not understand why I
failed to share his enchantment.

Once he returned in utter despair and told me that
Issayev was to be transferred to Kusnezk, a town five
hundred versts distant from Semipalatinsk. " And
she is quite calm, appears to see nothing amiss with
it. ... Isn't that maddening ?" he said bitterly.

Issayev was really transferred soon after that to
Kusnezk. Dostoevsky's despair was immeasurable;
he nearly went out of his mind; he regarded the
impending good-bye to Mafia Dmitryevna as a good-
bye to life. It turned out that the Issayevs were
heavily in debt; when they had sold all they had in
payment of these obligations, they had nothing left

THE ISSAYEVS GO 285

over for the journey. I helped them out, and at last
they started.

I shall never forget the leave-taking. Dostoevsky
wept aloud like a little child. Many years afterwards
in a letter to me of March 31, 1865, he alluded to
that scene.

Dostoevsky and I decided to go part of the way
with the Issayevs. I took him in my carriage, the
Issayevs sat in an open diligence. Before the de-
parture, they all turned in to drink a glass of wine at
my house. So as to enable Dostoevsky to have one
last talk undisturbed with Maria Dmitryevna before
she went, I made her husband properly drunk. On
the way I gave him some more champagne, thus
getting him wholly into my power then took him into
my carriage, where he forthwith fell asleep. Fyodor
Michailovitch went into Maria Dmitry evna's. It was
a wonderful clear moonlight night in May; the air
was filled with soft perfume. Thus we drove a long
way. At last we were obliged to part. Those two
embraced for the last time, and wiped the tears from
their eyes, while I dragged the drunken and drowsy
Issayev over to the carriage; he at once went off
again, and never knew in the least what had been
done with him. Little Pasha was fast asleep too.
The diligence set off, a cloud of dust arose, already
we could see it no more and the sound of the little
bells was dying away in the distance ; but Dostoevsky
stood stark and dumb, and the tears were streaming
down his cheeks. I went up to him, took his hand
he awoke from his trance and, without saying a word,
got into the carriage. We did not get back till dawn.
Dostoevsky did not lie down and try to sleep, but
kept walking to and fro in his room, talking to him-
self. After that sleepless night, he went to camp for
drill. Home again, he lay there the whole day,

286 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

neither eating nor drinking, and smoking pipe after
pipe.

Time did its work, and Dostoevsky's morbid despair
came to an end. He was in constant communication
with Kusnezk, but that did not always bring him
happiness. Fyodor Michailovitch had gloomy fore-
bodings. Mme. Issayev, in her letters, complained
of bitter poverty, of her own ill-health and the in-
curable sufferings of her husband, of the joyless future
which awaited her; and all this sorely depressed
Dostoevsky. He failed more and more in health,
became morose, irritable, and looked like the shadow
of a man. He even gave up working at " The House
of the Dead," which he had begun with such ardour.
Only when, on warm evenings, we lay in the grass
and looked up to the star-sown sky-, did he know
relative well-being. Such moments had a tranquil-
lizing effect on him. We seldom spoke of religion.
He was at heart religious, though he rarely entered a
church; the popes, and especially the Siberian ones,
he could not stand at all. Of Christ he would speak
with moving rapture. His manner in speech was
most peculiar. In general he did not speak loudly,
often indeed in a whisper; but when he grew enthu-
siastic, his voice would become louder and more
sonorous ; and when he was greatly excited, he would
pour forth words, and enchain his hearers by the
passion of his utterance. What wonderful hours I
have passed with him ! How much I owe to my
intercourse with that greatly gifted man ! In the
whole of our life together there never was a single
misunderstanding between us; our friendship was
untroubled by one cloud. He was ten years older,
and much more experienced, than I. Whenever, in
my youthful crudity, I began, terrified by the re-
pellent environment, to lose heart, Dostoevsky would

PREPARING FOR WAR 287

always tell me to take courage, would renew my
energies by his counsel and his warm sympathy.
I cherish his memory especially on account of the
human feeling with which he inspired me. After all
this, the reader will understand that I could not be
an indifferent witness of the unhappy frame of mind
into which his unfortunate relation with Mme. Issayev
had brought him.

I made up my mind to distract him from it in
every way I could. On every opportunity, I brought
him about with me, and made him known to the
engineers of the lead and silver mines that lie near
by. But I found it very hard to woo him from his
mournful brooding. He had got superstitious all of
a sudden, and would often tell me tales of somnam-
bulists, or visit fortune-tellers; and as I, at twenty,
had my own romance, he took me to an old man,
who told fortunes by beans.

About this time I heard from Petersburg that the
new Tsar was gracious and unusually clement, that
people were feeling a new spirit in things, and expect-
ing great reforms. This news had a most encouraging
effect on Dostoevsky; he grew more cheerful, and
much more rarely refused the distractions that I
offered him.

One day there came tidings from Omsk that in
consequence of the political tension on the southern
border and the unrest among the Circassians, the
Governor of Omsk was coming to Semipalatinsk, to
review the troops; it was said that on this occasion
he would also review the rest of the Siberian
garrisons.

So Dostoevsky, like the rest, had to prepare for the
possible campaign in every way ; he had to get boots,
a waterproof coat, linen, and other indispensable
clothing in a word, to equip himself afresh from

288 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

head to foot; for he possessed no clothes but those
he had on. Again he needed money, again he racked
his brains to think where to get it. These cursed
money-worries never left him. From his brother
Michael and his aunt he had just then had a small
sum; so he could not possibly ask them again. Such
anxieties tormented him terribly; and from Kusnezk
the news grew more troubling every day. Mme.
Issayev was dying of loneliness beside her sick and
ever-drunken husband, and complained in all her
letters of isolation and want of someone to talk to.
In her more recent letters there often occurred the
name of a new acquaintance, an interesting young
teacher, and colleague of her husband. In each suc-
ceeding letter she spoke of him with more enthusiasm
and pleasure; she praised his kindness, his fidelity,
and his remarkable powers of affection. Dostoevsky
was tortured by jealousy; and his dark mood had,
moreover, a harmful influence on his state of health.
I was sorely distressed about him, and resolved to
arrange a meeting with Maria Dmitryevna at Smiyev,
half-way between Kusnezk and Semipalatinsk. I
hoped that an interview might put an end to the
unhappy state of affairs. But I had set myself a
difficult task; how was I to take Dostoevsky from
Semipalatinsk to Smiyev, without anybody's know-
ledge ? The authorities would never permit him so
long a journey. The Governor and the Colonel had
already twice refused his applications for leave. It
reduced itself simply to taking our chance. I wrote
at once to Kusnezk and asked Maria Dmitryevna to
come to Smiyev on a certain day. At the same time
I spread a rumour in the town that Dostoevsky had
been so run down by several violent epileptic attacks
that he was obliged to keep his bed. I also informed
his Colonel that he was ill, and under treatment by

A MAD PRANK 289

the military doctor, Lamotte. This Lamotte, how-
ever, was our^ood friend, and in our confidence. He
was a Pole, formerly a student at the University of
Vilna, and had been sent to Siberia for some political
misdemeanour. My servants were instructed to say
to everyone that Dostoevsky was lying ill in my
house. The shutters were shut, "to keep the light
from disturbing the invalid." Nobody was allowed
to enter. Luckily for us, all the commanding officers
were away, from the Military Governor downwards.

Everything was in our favour. We started about
ten o'clock at night. We drove like the wind; but
poor Dostoevsky thought we were going at a snail's
pace, and conjured the coachman to drive still faster.
We travelled all night, and reached Smiyev by morn-
ing. How terrible was Dostoevsky's disappointment
when we were told that Maria Dmitryevna was not
coming ! A letter from her had arrived, in which she
told us that her husband was worse, and moreover
that she had no money for the journey. I can't
attempt to convey the despair of Dostoevsky ; I had
to rack my brains to tranquillize him in any sort of
way.

That same day we returned, having done the
300 versts in twenty-eight hours. Once at home, we
changed our clothes and instantly went to see some
acquaintances. So nobody ever knew anything about
our prank.

Our life went monotonously on; Dostoevsky was
mostly in dejected mood, and at times worked very
hard; I tried to divert him as well as I could. There
was no variety at all in our way of life; we walked
daily to the bank of the Irtich, worked in the garden,
bathed, drank tea, and smoked on the balcony.
Sometimes I would sit with a rod by the water,
while Dostoevsky lay near me on the grass and read

19

290 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

aloud; all the books I had were gone through count-
less times in this way. Among others he read to
me, " for my instruction," Aksakov's " Angling," and
" A Sportsman's Sketches." There was no library
in the town. The numerous books on zoology and
natural science that I had brought from Petersburg,
I knew almost by heart. Dostoevsky preferred fine
literature, and we eagerly devoured any new book.
The monotony of our lives was redeemed, however,
by the hours in which Dostoevsky 's creative inspira-
tion came over him. In such hours, he was in so
uplifted a state that I too was infected by it. Even
life in Semipalatinsk seemed not so bad in those
moments ; but alas ! the mood always went as
suddenly as it had come. Every unfavourable report
from Kusnezk brought it "to an end at one blow;
Dostoevsky instantly collapsed, and was seedy and
wretched again.

As I have already mentioned, he was then working
at " The House of the Dead." I had the great good
luck to see Dostoevsky in his inspired state, and to
hear the first drafts of that incomparable work from
his own lips ; even now, after all these years, I recall
those moments with a sense of exaltation. I was
always amazed by the superb humanity that glowed
in Dostoevsky's soul, despite his grievous destiny,
despite the prison, the exile, the terrible malady, and
the eternal want of money. Not less was I astonished
by his rare guilelessness and gentleness, which never
left him even in his worst hours.

[Baron Vrangel goes on to tell of the arrival of the
Governor-General, Hasford, at Semipalatinsk, and of
his arrogant and domineering manner.]

I was invited to lunch with the other officials at the
Governor's. I had known his wife in Petersburg.

A LOYAL POEM 291

She received me very cordially, and offered me a place
by her side.

At table the Governor assumed quite a different
tone, and behaved like an orciinary mortal. He
seemed in good spirits, asked me about my acquaint-
ances, and let fall the remark that he was well aware
of my relations with Dostoevsky. I made up my
mind to play upon his better temper, and win him to
Dostoevsky's cause. Dostoevsky had shortly before
written a poem on the death of Tsar Nicholas I.; we
wanted to send it through General Hasford to the
widowed Tsarina. The poem began, if I remember
rightly, in this way :

" As evening- red dies in the heavens,
So sank thy glorious spouse to rest. . ."

To my most respectfully proffered request, Hasford
replied with an energetic " No," and added: "I'll do
nothing for a whilom enemy of the Government.
But if they take him up in Petersburg of their own
accord, I shall put no obstacle in the way."

The poem reached the Tsarina, nevertheless, and
that in the following way: I wrote two or three
times to my father and my influential relations, and
begged them to discover some means of bringing it
to the Tsarina's notice. My endeavours were finally
crowned with success: Prince Peter Georgyevitch
von Oldenburg undertook to deliver the poem. The
Prince was an impassioned musician and a bad com-
poser; at that time he consorted much with the
well-known pianist, Adolf Henselt, who had to cor-
rect his compositions. This Henselt had been for
many years teaching music in our family. My
relatives applied to him, and he willingly acceded to
our request. The poem really did reach the Tsarina;
this was told me later by a high official. Dostoevsky

2 9 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

wrote yet another poem: "On the Accession of
Alexander II." This I later gave personally to
General Eduard Ivanovitch Totleben.

Dostoevsky was now terribly affected by his
malady; often he feared for his reason. He clearly
perceived the aim of his life to be literary work. But
so long as he was in exile, he would not be allowed
to publish his works; in his despair he even begged
me to let them appear under my name. That I did
not agree to this proposal, flattering as it was for me,
I need not say. Literature, moreover, was his only
means of earning money. He was longing at this
time for a personal life; he wanted to marry, and
hoped thereby to find " boundless happiness." For
many years he had suffered the direst need; who
knows if Dostoevsky had not taken that step for
which his stern critics so severely blame him, one
of the greatest Russian writers, the pride of Russia,
might have , languished to death in the deserts of
Siberia.

The projected campaign never came off. The
Governor-General departed, and our Semipalatinsk
society sank back into its lethargy. After their
urgent activities before the Governor-General, the
soldiers needed some rest, and so Fyodor Michailo-
vitch had a little spare time. We settled down again
in our " Kasakov Garden," and once more the days
were all alike. From Kusnezk came the gloomiest
tidings ; Dostoevsky went no more to the sooth-
sayers, bored himself to death, was always in bad
spirits, and took no pleasure in work. He simply did
not know how to kill the time. Then there occurred
to his mind a certain Marina O., the daughter of an
exiled Pole. When he used to go to the Issayevs',
he had interested himself in this girl at Maria
Dmitryevna's request, and given her some lessons.

MARINA 293

Now he went to her father, who after some time
declared himself willing to send her daily to Kasakov
Gardens for instruction. Marina was then seventeen,
and had grown into a blooming, pretty creature.
She brought life into our house, was quite at her
ease, laughing and romping, and coquetting with her
teacher.

I was at that time absorbed in a love-affair, and
sought diversion from it in long journeys. I was for
two months absent from Semipalatinsk, and in that
time covered more than 2,000 versts.

Dostoevsky stayed behind alone in the summer
weather, changeable of mood, teaching Marina, work-
ing, but not over-diligently, and keeping up a lively
correspondence with Maria Dmitryevna; his letters
to her were as thick as exercise-books.

When, before my departure, I saw how eagerly
Dostoevsky was interesting himself in the girl, who
was evidently in love with her teacher, I began to
hope that intercourse with Marina would woo him
from his fatal passion for Maria Dmitryevna. But
when I came back from my trip, I heard of a real
tragedy.

On my first view of Marina after my return, I was
shocked by her aspect; she was hollow-eyed, emaci-
ated, and shrunken. And Dostoevsky told me that
he had observed this alteration, but that no efforts
had enabled him to learn from her the cause of such
a metamorphosis. jNow, however, we both set our-
selves to question the girl, and at last she poured out
the following story:

The son of the Mayor of Semipalatinsk, a youth of
eighteen, had long had an eye for the pretty maiden ;
by the intervention of my housekeeper, he succeeded
in making her his own; the scoundrel stuck to her
for a while, and then deserted her. But that was not

294 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

the worst. The boy's coachman, a rascally old Cir-
cassian, knew of these relations; he had often gone
for the girl by his master's orders, to drive her to the
rendezvous. On one such transit, he threatened that
he would tell of the matter to her father and step-
mother if she did not yield herself to him. The
terrified Marina, who had very little force of character,
consented. The coachman was now blackmailing
her, and plundering her as he alone could; she hated
and feared him, and implored us to save her from the
clutches of this scoundrel.

The case cried to Heaven. I made use of my
official powers, and expelled the Circassian from
Semipalatinsk.

A year later, Marina was forced to marry, against
her will, a boorish old Cossack officer, selected for
her by her father. She hated him, and flirted as
before with anyone she came across. The old man
pestered her with his jealousy. Later on, when
Dostoevsky was married, this Marina was the cause
of quarrels and scenes of jealousy between him and
Maria Dmitryevna; for Marina still would flirt with
him, and this terribly enraged Maria Dmitryevna,
who was even then marked for death.

When I returned from a trip to Barnaul, I found
Dostoevsky still more broken-down, emaciated, and
desperately depressed. He always got a little more
cheerful in my company, but soon he was to lose
heart altogether, for I had to tell him that I should
be compelled to leave Semipalatinsk for ever.

[Vrangel left Semipalatinsk " for ever " in the
New Year of 1855.]

The last days before my departure went by very
quickly. By the end of December I was ready for the
road. Dostoevsky was with me the whole day, and

VRANGEL GOES 295

helped me to pack; we were both very sad. Involun-
tarily I asked myself if I should ever see him again.

After my departure he wrote me a succession of
moving, affectionate letters, and said that he suffered
frightfully from loneliness. In a letter of December 21
he writes: " I want to talk with you as we used to
talk when you were everything to me friend and
brother; when we shared every thought of each
other's heart. ..." Our parting grieved me bitterly.
I was young, strong, and full of roseate hopes ; while
he great, God-given writer was losing his only
friend, and had to stay behind as a common soldier,
sick, forsaken, desolate in Siberia !

The day of my departure arrived. So soon as
evening fell, Adam carried out my baggage; Dosto-
evsky and I embraced and kissed, and promised
never to forget one another. As at our first meeting,
both our eyes were wet. I took my seat in the
carriage, embraced my poor friend for the last time,
the horses started, the troika glided away. I took a
last look back; Dostoevsky's tragic figure was scarcely
to be discerned in the failing light.

In February I came to Petersburg. And now
began an unbroken correspondence between us. His
fate was not even yet quite decided. I knew that
there would be a general amnesty at the Coronation,
but how far this would affect those concerned in the
Petrachevsky affair was as yet uncertain. Even the
highest officials of the police could give me no in-
formation. This uncertainty agitated Dostoevsky
terribly. His impatience increased from hour to
hour. He would not see that I, an insignificant little
Siberian lawyer, could not possibly have any influence
on the course of events, and that even my powerful
relatives could do nothing to expedite his case. I did
not want to pester them too incessantly, lest I should

296 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

spoil all. But in his nervous excitement Dostoevsky
could not understand that. I did everything that I
at all could ; but Count Totleben was the most urgent
of any in his cause.

I had known Count Eduard Ivanovitch Totleben
from my school-days ; and had often met him at the
house of my great-uncle Manderstyerna, then Com-
mandant of the Petropaulovsky Fortress. He had
attended the College of Engineering at the same time
as Dostoevsky, and his brother Adolf had even been
intimate with the latter. Directly I arrived in
Petersburg I looked up Totleben, told him of
Dostoevsky's insupportable lot, and begged for his
support. I visited his brother Adolf also. Both
showed warm sympathy for Dostoevsky, and promised
me to do all they could. The name of Totleben was
then in everyone's mouth, not only in Russia, but over
all Europe. As a private individual, he was unusually
attractive. The high honours with which he had
been overwhelmed, had altered his character in no
wise. He was still the same friendly, good-humoured,
and humane person as when I had known him before
the war. He did much for Dostoevsky by his
intercession with Prince Orlov and other powerful
men in Petersburg.

Dostoevsky esteemed Totleben very highly, and
was much moved by his sympathy. In his letter to
me of March 23, 1856, he writes: "He is through
and through of knightly, noble, and generous nature.
You can't at all imagine with what joy I am follow-
ing all that such splendid fellows as you and the
Totleben brothers are doing for me."

But the greatest influence on Dostoevsky's fate
was that of Prince Peter von Oldenburg. He had
known me since my school-days. He was Proctor of
the school, and came there nearly every day. And

INFLUENCE AT WORK 297

now, therefore, I was called upon again to turn to
Adolf Henselt. I delivered to the Prince, through
Henselt, the new poem that Dostoevsky had written
on the Coronation. He mentions this poem in his
letter to me of May 23, 1856 :

" It would be, I think, clumsy to try unofficially
for permission to publish my works, unless I offer a
poem at the same time. Read the enclosed, then;
paraphrase it, and try to bring it under the monarch's
notice in some way or other."

I did all I could. The Prince gave the poem to
the Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna; whether it ever
reached the Tsar's hands, I know not.

At the same time Dostoevsky informed me that he
was going to send me an article, " Letters upon Art,"
that I might deliver it to the President of the
Academy, the Grand-Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. 1

I never received that article.

In the same letter he writes of another article,
which he had begun while we were still together
one " On Russia." z I never received that one, either.

All Dostoevsky's thoughts were now set on one
thing whether, in case of his pardon, he would be
permitted to publish his works. Not only his passion
for literary activity, but also his great need, obliged
him to strive for recognition in the highest quarters.
He then required much money, and had none at all.
He had numerous debts, and only that one hope of
earning something by means of the many stories and
novels with which his brain was always filled.

In January, 1860, Dostoevsky at last got permission
to settle in Petersburg. As the climate there was
harmful to his wife's health, he left her behind in
Moscow, and came alone to Petersburg. He took
rooms in Gorochovoya Street. We saw one another
i See p. 93. See p. 93.

298 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

very often, but only in flying visits, for we were both
carried away by the whirl of Petersburg life. More-
over, I was then engaged to be married, and spent all
my free time with my betrothed, while Dostoevsky
was working day and night. So our short interviews
were chiefly taken up with loving memories of the past.
On one of our meetings we spoke of a forthcoming
public event in Petersburg. I intended to make a
speech " upon the liberties and rights accorded by
the Tsarina Catherine II. to the Russian nobility."
Dostoevsky instantly sketched a brilliant discourse
for me; but at the meeting I controlled myself, and
did not deliver it. 1

I was once present at a public reading by Dosto-
evsky. He read Gogol's " Revisor." I already knew
his masterly art in delivery. The room was packed.
Dostoevsky's appearance and his reading were greeted
with thunders of applause. But I was not satisfied
with his performance that evening; I saw that he
was not in the right mood; his voice sounded dead,
and was sometimes barely audible. After the read-
ing, he sought me out among the audience, and told
me that he had not been in the mood; but that the
organizer of the evening had urged him not to
abandon the reading, and he never could say " No "
to anyone. If I am not mistaken, that was his first
reading after his return from banishment.

When in 1865 I returned to Copenhagen from my
summer leave, I found a despairing letter of Dos-
toevsky's from Wiesbaden. He wrote that he had
gambled away all his money, and was in a desperate
situation he had not a penny left, and creditors were
pressing him on every side. This craze of Dos-
toevsky's for play was somewhat surprising to me.

1 Some " emancipated " speeches were made on this occa-
sion, for which the orators were afterwards punished.

DOSTOEVSKY, MOSCOW, 1863.

THE FIRST MARRIAGE 299

In Siberia, where card-playing is so universal, he had
never touched a card. Probably his passionate nature
and shattered nerves needed the violent emotions
which gambling afforded him. At all events, now
I had to help my old friend out of his fix; I sent
him some money, though I had not a great deal
myself. With it I wrote, and said that he must
positively come to me at Copenhagen.

He did actually come to Copenhagen on October i,
and stayed a week with me. He extraordinarily
pleased my wife, and was much devoted to the two
children. I thought him thin and altered. Our
meeting gave us both great joy; we refreshed old
memories, of course, recalled the " Kasakov Gardens,"
our love affairs, etc. We spoke much of his first
wife, Maria Dmitryevna, and of the fair Marina, of
whom she had been so terribly jealous.

In this intimate talk we touched almost inevitably
on his family-life, and the strange relation (to this
day a mystery for me) between him and his first wife.
In one of his earlier letters, he wrote to me: "We
were both thoroughly unhappy, but could not cease
from loving one another; the more wretched we
were, the more we clung together." At the meeting
in Copenhagen he confirmed that saying. I had
never believed that Dostoevsky would find happiness
in that marriage. Every kind of torment the whole
grievous burden that he fastened on himself by that
connection robbed him of all peace of mind for long
and long. ... At Semipalatinsk I had often tried
to reason him out of his morbid passion for Maria
Dmitryevna, but he would listen to nothing. Maria
Dmitryevna was invested with a radiant halo in his
eyes.

Among other things, he expounded his views on
women in general, and gave me corresponding advice.

300 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Once, in talking of our Siberian acquaintances, 1
mentioned a frivolous and insidious lady of Semi-
palatinsk; Dostoevsky thereupon remarked: "We
should be eternally grateful to a woman whom we
have loved, for every day and hour of joy which she
has given us. We may not demand from her that
she think of us only all her life long; that is ugly
egoism, which we should subdue in ourselves."

As I have said, Dostoevsky looked very ill during
his stay at Copenhagen; before that, he had com-
plained in his letters of his state of health: " Besides
the epilepsy, I am a martyr to violent fever; every
night I have shivering fits and fever, and lose ground
day by day."

Even a perfectly sound man could not have borne
the harassed life that Dostoevsky was then leading !
Eternally in want of money, anxious not only for his
own family, but also for that of his brother Michael,
pursued by creditors, in constant fear of being clapped
in prison, he knew no rest day nor night ; by day he
was running from one newspaper-office to the other,
and by night he was writing, as he said himself, " to
order, under the lash." Naturally all that was bound
to have a hurtful effect on his health as well as his
character.

He told me of one incident, among others, which
will show how nervous and irritable he sometimes
was. When in Paris, it had occurred to him to pay
a visit to Rome. To do this, he had to have his
passport signed by the Papal Nuncio in Paris. Dosto-
evsky went twice to the Nuncio's, but on neither
occasion found him. When he went for the third
time, he was received by a young abbe", who asked
him to wait a while, as Monsignor was just breakfast-
ing, and would take his coffee first. Dostoevsky
leaped up as though gone suddenly crazy, and cried:

A SCENE AT THE NUNCIO'S 301

" Dites d votre Monseigneur, que je crache dans son
cajk qu'il me signe mon passeport, ouje me pr&cipiterai
chez lui avec scandale t" The young abbe" stared at
him in consternation ; he rushed into his chief's apart-
ment, came back with another abbe, and requested
our Fyodor Michailovitch to clear out at once, and
let the porter of his hotel come and see about the
passport.

" Yes I was too hot-tempered that time !" con-
cluded DostoevsTTy, with a shy smile. But evidently
this irritability long endured; for in one of his later
letters he writes: " I have become frightfully nervous
and irritable; my character gets worse every day,
and I can't imagine what it will end in." l

1 He used the incident at the Nuncio's in his book, " The
Gambler."

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF
SOPHIE KOVALEVSKYi

1866

ANYUTA was so delighted by her first literary success
that she at once began another story. The hero of this
tale was a young man who had been brought up far
away from home in a monastery by his uncle, a monk.
The hero, whose name was Michael, had some re-
semblance to Alyosha in the " Brothers Karamazov."
When I read that novel, some years afterwards, I was
instantly struck by the resemblance; I spoke of it to
Dostoevsky, whom I very often met at^that time.

" I believe you are right !" said he, striking his
forehead. " But I give you my word of honour that
I never once thought of this Michael, when I created
my Alyosha. . . . Perhaps he was unconsciously in
my memory," he added, after a pause.

When this second story of Anyuta's appeared in
print, the catastrophe arrived ; a letter of Dostoevsky 's
fell into my father's hands, and there was a great fuss.
We had hardly returned to Petersburg from the
country before Anyuta wrote to Dostoevsky asking

1 Sophie Kovalevsky, the renowned mathematician, tells
of the intercourse of Dostoevsky with her elder sister, Anna
Korvin-Kovalesvky, who had sent him her earliest literary
effort without her parents' knowledge. Later, not without
opposition from her parents, she made his acquaintance.
Sophie, who at that time was little more than a child, fell in
love with Dostoevsky. This episode belongs to the year
1866.

302

UNCOMFORTABLE INTERVIEW 303

him to call. And he came on the very day she
fixed. I can still remember with what feverish im-
patience we awaited his arrival, and how, for a whole
hour before he could be expected, we jumped at
every tingle of the bell. But this first visit of
Bostoevsky's was a complete failure.

Our father had a great prejudice against ail literary
men. It is true that he allowed my sister to make
acquaintance with Dostoevsky, but it was not with-
out secret anxiety. When we were going back to
town (he stayed in the country), he said, on parting,
to my mother:

" Do reflect, Lisa, on the great responsibility you
are undertaking. Dostoevsky does not belong to our
circles. What do we know of him, after all ? Only
that he is a journalist, and has been in prison. A
nice recommendation ! We shall have to be very
cautious about him."

Father especially enjoined on mother that she
should never leave Anyuta a moment alone with
Dostoevsky. I begged for permission to be present
at this first meeting. Our two old German aunts
came into the room every minute on one pretext or
another, and stared at our guest as if he were some
strange animal; finally they both sat down on the
sofa and stayed there till he went.

Anyuta was furious that her first meeting with
Dostoevsky, on which she had set such high hopes,
should be taking place in such circumstances; she
looked cross, and would not speak. Dostoevsky too
was very uncomfortable in the presence of the two
old ladies. It was clear that he was sharply annoyed.
He looked ill and old that day, as he always did when
he was in a bad temper. He pulled nervously at his
short blonde beard, bit his moustache, and made
dreadful faces.

304 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Mama did her very best to get up an interesting
conversation. With the friendliest conventional smile
on her lips, but evidently in the greatest perplexity,
she tried to say all sorts of pleasant and flattering
things to him, and to ask him intelligent questions.

Dostoevsky answered monosyllabically and dis-
courteously. At last Mama was au bout de ses
ressources, and said no more. Dostoevsky sat with us
half-an-hour ; then he took his hat, bowed hastily
and awkwardly to us all, but shook hands with none
of us and went.

As soon as he was gone, Anyuta ran to her room,
threw herself on the bed, and began to cry. " You
always spoil everything !" she said, over and over
again.

Yet, some days later, Dostoevsky reappeared, and
his visit this time was very opportune, for Mama and
the aunts were out, and only my sister and I at home.
He thawed at once. He took Anyuta by the hand,
sat down beside her on the divan and instantly they
began to talk as if they were two old friends. The
conversation did not, as on his first visit, drag itself
with difficulty from one uninteresting theme to
another. Anyuta and he had to make the best use
of their time, and say as much as they possibly could
to one another, so on they gabbled, joked, and
laughed.

I was sitting in the same room, but taking no part
in their conversation; I stared unwinkingly at Dos-
toevsky, and devoured every single word he said.
This time he looked different from what he had at
his first visit young, frank, clever, and attractive.
" Can he really be forty-three years old ?" thought I.
" Can he really be three-and-a-half times as old as
I am, and twice as old as Anyuta ? They say he's a
great writer, and yet one can talk to him like a

A SECOND VISIT 305

chum !" And all at once he seemed to me such
a dear. Three hours went by in no time. Suddenly
there was a noise in the ante-room : Mama had come
back from town. She did not know that Dostoevsky
was there, and came in with her hat on, laden with
parcels.

When she saw Dostoevsky with us, she was sur-
prised and a little alarmed. " What would my
husband say ?" was probably her first thought. We
rushed to meet her, and when she saw we were in
such high spirits, she thawed in her turn, and asked
Dostoevsky to stay for lunch.

From that day forward he came to our house as a
friend. As our stay in Petersburg was not to be
"Very long, he came frequently, say three or four times
in the week.

It was particularly agreeable when he came on
evenings when we had no other visitors. On such
occasions he was remarkably vivacious and interesting.
Fyodor Michailovitch did not like general conversa-
tion; he could only talk as a monologuist, and even
then only when all those present were sympathetic
to him, and prepared to listen with eager attention.
When this condition was fulfilled, he talked most
beautifully eloquent and convincing as no one else
could be.

Often he told us the story of the novels he was
planning, often episodes and scenes of his own life.
I can still remember clearly how, for example, he
described the moment when he, condemned to death,
stood with eyes blindfolded before the company of
soldiers, and waited for the word " Fire !" and how
instead there came the beating of drums, and they
heard that they were pardoned.

Dostoevsky was often very realistic in his conversa-
tion, and quite forgot that young girls were listening,

306 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

I suppose. Our mother used sometimes to be terrified.
In this way he once told us a scene out of a novel he
had planned in his youth. The hero was a landed
proprietor of middle age, highly educated and refined ;
he often went abroad, read deep books, and bought
pictures and engravings. In his youth he had been
very wild indeed, but had grown more staid with
years; by this time he had a wife and children, and
was universally respected. Well, one morning he
wakes very early; the sun is shining into his bed-
room; everything about him is very dainty, pretty,
and comfortable. He is penetrated with a sense of
well-being. Thorough sybarite that he is, he takes
care not to awake completely, so as not to destroy
this delightful state of almost vegetable felicity. On
the boundary between sleep and waking, he enjoys in
spirit a series of agreeable impressions from his latest
trip abroad. He thinks of the wonderful light on the
naked shoulders of a St. Cecilia in one of the galleries.
Then some fine passages from a book called " Of the
Beauty and Harmony of the Universe " come into
his mind. But in the midst of these pleasant dreams
and sensations he suddenly becomes aware of a
peculiar feeling of discomfort, such as that from an
internal ache or a mysterious disturbance. Very
much like what a man experiences who has an old
wound, from which the bullet has not been extracted ;
in the same way, he has been feeling perfectly at ease
when suddenly the old wound begins to smart. And
now our landed proprietor speculates on what this
may portend. He has no ailment, he knows of no
trouble, yet here he is, utterly wretched. But there
must be something to account for it, and he urges
his consciousness to the utmost. . . . And suddenly
it does come to him, and he experiences it all as
vividly, as tangibly and with what horror in every

DOSTOEVSKY IN SOCIETY 307

atom of his being ! as if it had happened yesterday
instead of twenty years ago. Yet for all that twenty
years it has not troubled him.

What he remembers is how once, after a night of
debauchery, egged on by drunken companions, he
had forced a little girl of ten years old.

When Dostoevsky uttered those words, my mother
flung her hands above her head, and cried out in
terror: " Fyodor Michailovitch ! For pity's sake!
The children are listening !"

At that time I had no idea what Dostoevsky was
talking about, but from my mother's horror I con-
cluded that it must be something frightful.

Mama and Dostoevsky became good friends, all the
same. She was very fond of him, though he gave
her much to bear.

Before we left Petersburg Mama decided to have
a farewell evening-party, and invite all our acquaint-
ances. Of course, Dostoevsky was asked. At first
he refused, but unluckily Mama succeeded in per-
suading him to come.

The evening was unusually dull. The guests took
not the slightest interest in one another; but as well-
bred people, for whom such dull evenings form an
essential part of existence, they bore their tedium
stoically.

One can easily divine how poor Dostoevsky felt in
such company ! In his personality and appearance
he was frightfully alien to everybody else. He had
gone so far in self-immolation as to put on a dress-
coat; and this dress-coat, which fitted very badly
and made him uncomfortable, ruined his temper for
the whole evening. Like all neurotic people, he was
very shy in the company of strangers, and it was
clear that his ill-temper was to be displayed on the
earliest possible opportunity.

308 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

My mother hastened to present him to the other
guests; instead of a courteous acknowledgment, he
muttered something inarticulate, and turned his back
at once. But the worst was that he monopolized
Anyuta from the very beginning. He withdrew
with her into a corner of the room, plainly intending to
keep her there all the time. That was, of course, con-
trary to all etiquette; and he behaved to her, more-
over, with anything but drawing-room manners
holding her hand and whispering in her ear. Anyuta
was much embarrassed, and Mama was vexed to
death. At first she tried to convey to him delicately
how unsuitable his conduct was. She passed the
couple as if by chance, and called my sister, as if to
send her into the other room on some message.
Anyuta tried to get up and go, but Dostoevsky coolly
held her back, and said: "No, wait I haven't
finished yet." But with that my mother's patience
came to an end.

" Excuse me, Fyodor Michailo vitch ; she must, as
daughter of the house, attend to the other guests,"
said she indignantly, leading my sister away with her.

Dostoevsky was furious; he stayed silently sitting
in his corner, and casting malignant looks on every
side.

Among the guests was one who displeased him
extraordinarily from the first moment. This was a
distant relative of ours, a young German, an officer
in one of the Guards' regiments.

Handsome, tall, and self-satisfied, this personage
excited his hostility. The young man was sitting,
effectively posed, in a comfortable chair, and display-
ing his slender ankles, clad in close-fitting silk socks.
He bent gaily towards my sister, and evidently said
something very funny to her. Anyuta, who had not
yet recovered from the scene between Dostoevsky and

HE BREAKS OUT 309

my mother, heard him with a somewhat stereotyped
smile " the smile of a gentle angel," as our English
governess laughingly described it.

As Dostoevsky watched the pair, a veritable
romance formed itself in his brain: Anyuta hates
and scorns the German, self-satisfied fop that he is,
but her parents mean to marry her to him. The
whole party has of course been got up to this end
alone !

He believed at once in this hypothesis, and got
into a fury. That winter, people were talking much
of a book by an English clergyman: "Parallels
between Protestantism and [Greek] Orthodoxy."
In our Russo-German circle it was exciting great
interest, and the conversation grew more animated as
soon as this book was mentioned. Mama, who was
herself a Protestant, remarked that Protestantism
had one advantage over Orthodoxy, and that was that
Protestants were more conversant with the Bible.

" And was the Bible written for fashionable ladies ?"
Dostoevsky suddenly broke out, having sat stubbornly
silent till now. " For in the Bible it is written, among
other things: ' And God made them male and female.'
And again : ' Therefore shall a woman forsake her
father and mother, and shall cleave unto her husband.'
That was Christ's conception of marriage ! What
have our mothers to say to it, they who think only
of how they may get rid of their daughters to the best
advantage? "

Dostoevsky said these words with uncommon
pathos. The effect was stupendous. All our well-
bred Germans were confounded, and stared with all
their eyes. Not for some moments did they realize
how unsuitable Dostoevsky's speech had been, and
then they all began to talk at once, so as to obliterate
the unfortunate impression.

3io RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

Dostoevsky cast another malignant look on all,
retired to his corner, and spoke not a word for the
rest of the evening.

When he came next day, Mama tried by a cool
reception to give him to understand that she felt her-
self to be offended. But in her great good-nature she
never could long be angry with anyone, and so they
soon became friends again.

But, on the other hand, the relations between
Dostoevsky and Anyuta were completely altered
from that evening. He lost all influence over her, at
that one blow; she now continually took it into
her head to contradict and tease him. He showed,
on his side, great irritation and intolerance; he
would demand an account from her of every day
on which he had not been with us, and displayed
much hostility to everybody whom she at all liked.
He did not visit us less frequently, indeed he came
oftener even than before, and stayed longer every
time, though he never ceased quarrelling with my
sister during his whole visit.

In the beginning of their intimacy, Anyuta used
to refuse many invitations and gaieties if she knew
Dostoevsky was coming on those days. Now that,
too, was quite changed. When he came to us on an
evening when we had other visitors, Anyuta calmly
devoted herself to the other guests. And if she were
invited anywhere on one of " his " evenings, she
would write and put him off.

The next day, Dostoevsky was always in a bad
temper. Anyuta would pretend not to notice, and
take a piece of sewing. This would make him worse ;
he would go into a corner and sit silent. My sister
would say nothing either.

" Do stop sewing !" says Dostoevsky at last, and
takes her work away from her.

AN ODD COURTSHIP 311

My sister crosses her arms on her breast, and says
not a word.

"Where were you last night ?" asks Dostoevsky
crossly.

' At a ball," says my sister carelessly.

' And did you dance ?"

' Naturally."

' With your cousin ?"
With him and others."

And that amuses you ?" Dostoevsky further
inquires.

Anyuta shrugs.

" For want of anything better, it does," she
answers, and begins to sew again.

Dostoevsky regards her in silence for some
moments.

" You are a shallow, silly creature," he suddenly
declares.

That was the tone of most of their conversations.
They had their bitterest quarrels when the subject of
Nihilism came up. The debates on this theme would
often last till late into the night; and each would
express far extremer views than either held.

" The whole younger generation is stupid and un-
cultured !" Dostoevsky was wont to say. " A pair of
country boots is more precious to them than the whole
of Pushkin."

" Pushkin is out-of-date," my sister would calmly
maintain. She knew that nothing put him out so
thoroughly as a disrespectful remark about Pushkin.

Dostoevsky would often spring up in a rage, seize
his hat, and depart with a solemn asseveration that he
did not want to have anything more to do with a
Nihilist, and would never again cross our threshold.
But next evening he would come again, as if nothing
had happened.

312 RECOLLECTIONS OF DOSTOEVSKY

The more strained became the relations between
Dostoevsky and my sister, the more friendly did I
grow with him. I was more fascinated by him every
day, and more subject to his influence. Of course he
could see how I adored him, and he evidently liked
it. He often Fold my sister that she should take
example by me.

When Dostoevsky uttered some profound idea or
some clever paradox, my sister frequently chose to
pretend that she did not understand him ; I would be
quite carried away, while she, to torment him, would
make some insipid rejoinder.

" You are a poor, insignificant thing !" Dostoevsky
would then exclaim. " How different your sister is !
She is still a child, but how wonderfully she under-
stands me ! Hers is a delicate, sensitive soul !"

I would get crimson all over with delight ; I would
gladly have let myself be cut in pieces to show how
well I understood him. In the depths of my soul
I was well pleased with this change in the relation of
Dostoevsky to my sister; but I was ashamed of the
feeling. I accused myself of treachery to my sister,
and took great pains to make up for my secret sin by
being very nice to her. But despite all pangs of con-
science, I was always glad of every fresh quarrel
between Dostoevsky and Anyuta. He called me
his friend, and I, in my simplicity, believed that
I was really dearer to him than my sister, and under-
stood him better. Even my looks he praised to the
detriment of hers.

[Finally Dostoevsky made a proposal of marriage
to the elder sister, but it was not accepted.]

Dostoevsky came once more, to take leave. He
stayed only a short time, but was simple and friendly
in his manner to Anyuta; they promised to write to

IN LOVE 313

one another. He said good-bye to me very tenderly.
He even kissed me, but had no idea, I am sure, of the
feelings that he had awakened in me.

After about six months, Dostoevsky wrote to my
sister to say that he had learned to know and love
a wonderful girl, who had consented to marry him.
This girl, Anna Grigorevna Snitkin, became later his
second wife. "My word of honour: if anyone had
prophesied this to me half a year ago, I should not
have believed it !" remarks Dostoevsky naively at
the end of this letter.

Dostoevsky in the Judgment of
his Contemporaries

R. P. Pobyedonoszev 1 to I. S. Aksakov

" January 30, 1881.

' MY DEAR FRIEND IVAN SERGEYEVITCH !

" When you wrote to me that you felt so sick
at heart, you as yet knew nothing of Dostoevsky's
death. But I stand by his bier, and my heart is
doubly sick. I knew this man well. I had reserved
for him my Saturday evenings, and he often came to
talk alone with me. I even furnished him with many
hints for his ' Zosima ' ; 2 we talked of that often and
intimately. The time when he was editing Grajdanin
was that of our intimacy. I pitied him in his desperate
state, and worked together with him through a whole
summer; in such a way we quickly made friends. In
these times, he was the very man for our cause. He
cannot be replaced, for he stood entirely alone. . . ."

1 Pobyedonoszev, the famous Head Procurator of the Holy
Synod, had a great influence on the conservative side in
Russian politics of the years from 1881 to 1904. His corre-
spondence with the Slavophil, Ivan Aksakov, is from the point
of view of both very remarkable; they saw in Dostoevsky
their companion in battle against the reforms and revolu-
tionary tendencies of the 'eighties.

2 In " The Brothers Karamazov."

TURGENEV SPEAKS 315

II

/. S. Aksakov to R. P. Pobyedonoszev

" Moscow,

" February, 1881.

" The death of Dostoevsky is a real chastisement
from God. Now for the first time it is fully felt what
value he had as a teacher of the younger generation.
Even those who did not know him personally must
perceive it. Those noble ideals which many a youth
cherishes unconsciously in his soul, found in him an
upholder. For ' injured and insulted ' is, in very
truth, only the religious and moral sense of the
Russian intelligence. ..."

Ill

TURGENEV ON DOSTOEVSKY
Letter to Slutchevsky of December 26, 1861

" My Bazarov, or to speak more precisely, my
intentions, only two men have comprehended:
Dostoevsky and Botkin."

Letter to Dostoevsky of December 26, 1861

" I am reading with great enjoyment your ' House
of the Dead.' The description of the bath is worthy
of a Dante; in several figures (for example, in Petrov)
there are many most authentic psychological subtleties.
I am truly rejoiced at the success of your journal, and
repeat that I shall always be glad to give it a helping
hand."

316 CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENTS

Letter to Polonsky of April 24, 1871

" I am told that Dostoevsky has immortalized me
in his novel ; l I don't mind, if he likes to do that sort
of thing. . . ."

[Turgenev goes on to tell of his meeting with
Dostoevsky at Baden-Baden, 2 and says more than
once that he considers Dostoevsky to be mad.]

Letter to Mme. Milyutin of December 3, 1872

" MY DEAR MARIA AGGEYEVNA,

" I thank you from my heart for the friendly
feelings which dictated your last letter. I was not in
the least surprised by Dostoevsky 's proceeding: he
began to hate me when we were both young and at
the commencement of our literary activities, although
I did nothing to call forth that hatred. But un-
reasoned passions are, it is said, the strongest and
most persistent of all. Dostoevsky has permitted
himself something worse than a parody: he has
shown me, under the mask of Karmasinov, as a
secret partisan of Netchayev. It is worthy of remark
that he selected for this parody the only story which
I published in the journal at one time conducted by
him a story for which he overwhelmed me in his
letters with thanks and praise. I still have his letters.
It would certainly be rather amusing to make them
public now. But he knows that I shall never do so.
I am sorry that he should use his undoubtedly great
talent for the satisfaction of such unlovely feelings;
evidently he does not himself prize his gifts very
highly, since he degrades them to a pamphlet."

1 As Karmasinov in " The Possessed."

2 See Dostoevsky 's letter to Maikov of August 16, 1867.

TOLSTOY SPEAKS 317

Letter to Saltykov of November 25, 1875

" The theme of Goncourt's novel is very daring.
As he says himself, the book is the fruit of a close
scientific study of the life of prostitutes. But at all
events, it's something very different from Dostoevsky's
' Hobbledehoy.' I glanced at that chaos in the last
number of the Otetschestvennia Zapiski; my God,
what a welter of hospital stinks ! What a vain and
incomprehensible stuttering; what a psychological
rubbish-heap ! . . ."

Letter to Saltykov of September 24, 1882

" I also read Michailovsky's article on Dostoevsky.
He has rightly divined the characteristic mark of
Dostoevsky's creative work. In French literature,
too, there was a like case namely, the famous
Marquis de Sade. This latter depicts in his
' Tourments et Supplices ' the sensual pleasure
afforded by the infliction of refined tortures. And
Dostoevsky, in one of his books, enlarges on the same
sort of delights. . . . And when one thinks that all
the Russian Bishops said masses for the soul of this
Marquis de Sade, and even preached sermons about
his great love for all mankind ! Truly, we live in
a remarkable age."

IV

LEO TOLSTOY ON DOSTOEVSKY
From Tolstoy's Letters to A. N. Strachov

" September 26, 1880.

' Lately I was ill, and read Dostoevsky's ' House
of the Dead.' I have read much, and forgotten
much; but I do not know in all modern literature,

318 CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENTS

Pushkin included, any better book. Not the manner,
but the point of view, is what is so remarkable; it is
so frank, natural, and Christ-like. A fine, edifying
book. Yesterday, when I read it, I knew such
pleasure as I have not had for a long time. If
you see Dostoevsky, tell him that I love him."

At the beginning of 1881 :

" I wish I had the power to say all that I think of
Dostoevsky ! When you inscribed your thoughts,
you partly expressed mine. I never saw the man,
had no sort of direct relations with him; but when
he died, I suddenly realized that he had been to me
the most precious, the dearest, and the most necessary
of beings. It never even entered my head to compare
myself with him. Everything that he wrote (I mean
only the good, the true things) was such that the
more he did like that, the more I rejoiced. Artistic
accomplishment and intellect can arouse my envy;
but a work from the heart only joy. I always
regarded him as my friend, and reckoned most con-
fidently on seeing him at some time. And suddenly
I read that he is dead. At first I was utterly con-
founded, and when later I realized how I had valued
him, I began to weep I afn weeping even now.
Only a few days before his death, I had read with
emotion and delight his ' Injury and Insult.' "

INDEX

AKSAKOV, Ivan Sergeyevitch,

239. 290, 314, 315; letter

to, 242
Alexander II., the Tsar,

92, 283, 287, 292
Altschevsky, Mme. Ch. D.,

letter to, 211
" Andrey Kolossov " (Tur-

genev's), 29
" Androraaque," 13
Annenkov, 238, 254
Annenkov, Mme. Praskovya

Yegorovna, letter to, 77
" Atala," 22

Bachirev, Alexey Ivano-

vitch, 77, 79
Balzac, 4, 250
Beketov II., 36, 40, 248
Beranger, 19
Berechetzky, 248
Bernard, Claude, 219
Bernardsky, 38
Bestuchev, Alexander, 254
Bielinsky, Vissarion Grigor-

yevitch, 24, 25, 29, 30,

3L 32. 34- 35. 39, "6,
143, 149, 156, 181, 205,
206, 209, 250, 253, 254,
255, 261

Blagonravov, Dr. A. F.,
letter to, 244

Boborykin, Pyotr, 103

Borislavsky, General, 268,
271

Botkin, 315

"Brothers Karamazov, The,"
150, 154, 162, 176, 177,
180, 237, 239, 243, 244,
302, 314

Bulgarin, Faddey, 26

Butachevitch-Petrachevsky,
M. V., 64, 257, 258, 262,
281, 295

Byron, Lord, 8, 12

Cellini, Benvenuto, 96
Chateaubriand, 9, 22
Chomyakov, 205
Constantine, Mme. V. D.,

letter to, toi
Corneille, 13, 14
" Crime and Punishment,"

95, 106, 161, 174, 211

Danilevsky, 148, 163, 165

Dershavin, 13, 259

" Diary of a Writer, The,"
123,' 211, 212, 213, 238,
239, 242, 243, 252

Dickens, Charles, 136, 241,
269

Dobrolyubov, 204

" Don Quixote," 136, 241

Dostoevsky, Andrey, 46, 49

Dostocvsky, Anna Grigor-
ovna, 109, no, 113, 114,
119, 120, 121, 129, 130,
132, 137, 139, 14. ML
145, 146, 167, 169, 170,
172. 186, 189, 190, 192,

319

320

DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS

Dostoevsky, Emilie Fyodo-

rovna, 21, 30, 42, 49, 53,

119, 1^7, 164
Dostoevsky, Fedya, 129, 132,

138, 238

Dostoevsky, Kolya, 63
Dostoevsky, Lyuba, 183, 189
Dostoevsky, Maria Dmitry-

evna, 83, 275 et seq.
Dostoevsky, Michael Andre-

yevitch, 5, 9; letter to, i
Dostoevsky, Michael Michail-

ovitch, 247, 257, 262, 263,

272

Dostoevsky, Sacha, 63
Dostoevsky, Sonia, 140, 141
Dourov, Sergey Fyodoro-

vitch, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56,

78, 257, 258, 261, 262, 263,

264, 265, 266, 267, 268,

269, 270
Drushinin, 65

Dubelt, Chief of Police, 281
Dumas, 42, 251

" Eternal Widow, The," 175

" Fathers and Sons," 161,

315

Filippov, 64, 262
Fonvisin, Mme. N. D., 66
Fourier, 259
Franois Xavier, St., 155

" Gambler, The," 104, 301

Garibaldi, 124

Gayevsky, 239

George Sand, 27, 85

Gerassimov, Mile., letter to,
217

Goethe, 5, 242

Gogol, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 31,
32, 96, 157, 182, 209, 241,
2 54. 255, 261, 280, 298

" Goliadkin " (" The Dou-
ble "), 24, 28, 30, 31, 33,

34. 35. 38. 42
Golovinsky, 04

Golubov, 182

Gontscharov, Ivan Alexan-

drovitch, 36, 97, 114, 174,

194, 212, 241
Gorgey, 279
Granovsky, 163, 176, 179,

181, 208, 237, 238
Grave, General de, 268, 271
Grigorovitch, Dmitri Vassili-

vitch, 26, 27, 36, 37, 103 n.
Grigoryev, 64, 156, 209, 282
Guizot, 60

Hasford, the Governor-Gen-
eral of Siberia, 93, 290,
291

Henselt, Adolf, 291

Herzen (Iskander), 36, 116,
126, 178, 205, 261

" Hobbledehoy, The," 317

Hoffmann, the works of, 4,
5, it, 248, 254

Homer, n, 12, 13

" House of Gentlefolk, A,"
98

" House of the Dead, The,"
80, 105, 265, 266, 270, 286,
290, 315, 317

Hugo, Victor, 5, 9, 12, 136,
206, 211, 259, 280

Humboldt, 219

" Idiot, The," 129, 135, 139,

145, 152, 153, 158, 161,

163, 185, 189

" Injury and Insult," 99, 318
Issayev, Alexander Ivano-

vitch, 70, 71, 73, 75, 275,

282, 284, 285, 286
Issayev, Pasha, 101, 119,

132, 137, 147, 285; letters

to, 127, 138
Ivanov, Alexander Pavlo-

vitch, 134, 271, 273, 375
Ivanov, Constantine Ivano-

vitch, 60, 63, 77
Ivanov, Olga Ivanovna, 77,

78, 272

INDEX

321

Ivanov, Vera and Alexander,
letters to, 129, 183

Kachelyov, 98

Kachpirev, 148, 163, 172,

175, 180
Karamsin, 241
Karr, Alphonse, 27
Katkov, 94, 97. 98, 107, 140,

142, 154, 160, 161, 164,

173. 193. 2 39
Kelsiyev, V., 126
Kireyevsky, 205
Korvin - Kovalevsky, Anna,

302

Kostomarov, 241
Krayevsky, 26, 28, 30, 35,

36. 38. 39, 53- 65, 156
Krestovsky, Vsevolod, 65,

100

Krivzov, Major, 56, 271
Kroneberg, 24
Kukolnik, 27

Lamansky, Porfiry, 257
" Little Hero, The," 65
Lomonossev, 180
Lyubimov, 106, 107, 161

Maikov, Apollon Nikolaye-

vitch, 37, 39, 93, 100, 128,

I 54. I 75> 2 7 2 > 282. See

also letters to.
Malherbe, 14
Maria Nikolayevna, the

Grand Duchess, 93, 297
Marlinsky (Alexander Bes-

tuchev), 254
Marten, Colonel, 271
" Memoirs of a Madman "

(Gogol's), 33, 102. 255
Michailovsky's article on Dos-

toevsky, 317
Milyutin, Mme., Turgenev's

letter to, 316
Monbelli, Nikolay, 64, 257,

262
Muravyov, 280

Napoleon III., 122, 127
Nekrassov, Nikolay Alexeye-

vitch, 24, 26, 29, 35, 38,

250, 252, 253
Nicholas I., 273, 279, 283,

291

Odoyevsky, Prince, 28, 32
Oldenburg, Prince Peter of,

291, 296

Orlov, Prince, 281, 296
Osmidov, Nikolay Kukitch,

221, 240

Ostrovsky, 65, 151, 157
Owen, Robert, 259

Palm, Alexander, 257, 258
Paul I., 149, 182
Pechechonov, Pyotr Michail-

ovitch, 73, 74
Pererepenko, Ivan Ivano j

vitch, 15

Peter the Great, 112, 227
Pissarev, 204
Pissemsky, 65, 84, 85, 96
Plechtcheyev, A. N., 50, 257,

282
Pobyedonoszev, R. P., letter

from, 314, 315
Polonsky, Turgenev's letter

to, 316
" Poor Folk," 1 6, 18, 20, 21,

23, 25, 26. 31, 32, 33, 37,

38, 43, 103, 252
" Possessed, The," 174, 176,

185, 193, 198, 199. 202,

205, 306
" Prochartschin, Mr.," 36,

43, 254

. Prokofyev, K. P., 54
Proudhon, 259
| Pushkin, 8, 12, 13, 19, 22,

24 n., 27, 94, 96, 157, 180,

181, 204, 206, 208, 209,

237, 241, 259, 280

Racine, 13
Ranke, 60

21

322

DOSTOEVSKY'S LETTERS

Raphael, 19
Reschetnikov, 210
Ronsard, 14
Rousseau, 207

Saliubezky, 40

Saltykov, Turgenev's letters

to, 31?

Sassulitch, Vera, 231
Schevirov, 27

Schidlovsky, I. N., 5, 8, n
Schiller, n, 12, 13, 15, 20,

23, 241, 242
Schlosser's "Weltgeschichte,"

241

Scott, Sir Walter, 20, 241
Senkovsky, 250
Sevigne, Madame de, 85
Shakespeare, n, 13, 14, 17,

48, 49, 96, 241
Slutchevsky, Turgenev's

letter to, 315
" Smoke," 115, 118
Snitkin, 102
Sollogub, Count, 28, 32
Solovyov, Vladimir, 235
Souli6, 251

Spiridonov, Military Gover-
nor of Semipalatinsk, 278
Stankevitch, 176
Stellovsky, a publisher, 107,

200, 202

Stepanov, Captain, 275
" Stepanschikovo Village,"

98, 279
Sterne, 22
Strachov, Nikolay Nikolaye-

vitch, 103, 115, 143, 144,

148, 154, 162, 163, 164,

167, 179, 182, 200, 317.
See also letters to.
Syetchenov, 219

Tchaadayev, Pyotr Yakov-

levitch, 181
Tchernychevsky, 116
Tchutchev, 216
Thierry, 60
Thiers, 60
Tolstoy, 84, 157, 179, 210,

2it, 241, 317, 318
Totleben, Adolf Ivanovitch,

91, 296
Totleben, General Count

Eduard Ivanovitch, 292,

296 ; letter to, 86
Trediakovsky, 14
Troizky, Doctor, 268, 270
Tur, Eugenie, 65
Turgenev, 29, 30, 49, 84,

98, 115, 159, 163, 174.

187, 194, 203, 209, 239,

240, 254, 255; letters from,

315
Tyutchev, Fyodor, 85

" Uncle's Dream," 84, 98,
279

Veimarn, Alexander, 281
Vitkovsky, 248
Vrangel, Baron, 70, 71, 73,
74. 75. 7 8 . 8 : letter to, 92

Yastrchembsky, 53, 54, 55,

64

Zadonsky, Tikhon, i8r

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